Author | Lightnews

Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 1h

Thanks a ton, though I still feel awkward because it's only the least I can do. I was lucky enough to grow up with better mentors than Andrew Tate and his ilk, folks who hammered home the point that other people are *people* and must be treated as such. Now I have to pay it forward!

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jeff com-BOO-ters @helldude.bsky.social · 3h

people don’t realize what’s really going on. they view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. they don’t realize that there’s this lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything

NPR @npr.org · 3h

One of the biggest mergers of the year, worth $49 billion, comes just weeks after the Trump administration linked the common painkiller to autism, which the company is fighting.

Huggies maker Kimberly-Clark is buying Tylenol maker Kenvue

One of the biggest mergers of the year, worth $49 billion, comes just weeks after the Trump administration linked the common painkiller to autism, which the company is fighting.

n.pr

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 1h

Also, if Mamdani isn't a Democrat, who is? There are two other options. One is a Republican vigilante, and one is a former Democrat who resigned in disgrace and is running as an Independent because he's mad he got rejected by the voters. If she rejects Mamdani, which does she think is better?

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 1h

It requires a lot of media literacy as well! Many people rightly have a lot of skepticism for Rogan but then have none at all for the Times. Yeah, the NYT is *more* reliable, but it's still biased, still has writers of varying quality/reliability, and you can't just treat it as right.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 5h

"You leave, or I put this grenade right in front of you. I'm perfectly fucking legal, bitch." ICE to a bystander in her car, in front of which he then throws a flashbang before driving away. eyesupapp.com/video/1e32e9...

eyesupapp.com

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 5d

It's wild the misogyny has morphed into straight up misanthropy for them. They reject everyone's humanity, even their own! Their supposed hopes and dreams sound like they're reciting a checklist: make money, get married, have kids. The line about not feeling worthy of romance hammered that in for me

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🎃 @hilaryagro.com · 5d

A writer tried dating alt-right men as an experiment to learn about them. There is so much going on here I don't even know where to start

www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/...

I told him that I was born in Russia and was a writer. He showed me a list he’d written of his favourite desserts in the city. It was a sober hobby he’d started during the pandemic, going to restaurants by himself, sampling sweets. He made a lot of lists, he said, most of them food-related. I asked what other kinds he made.

“Lists of lies liberal white women tell about Donald Trump,” he replied.

Suddenly, his leg was shaking. He grabbed the edges of the table and raised his voice: “White, liberal women are a plague on our society.”

He proceeded to drink 11 iced coffees.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 5d

I've started trying to pull younger guys away from this black hole. I'll watch your video for more guidance! Thankfully, they love hierarchies, so I can use my age to my advantage. Accepting their feelings and listening but also firmly stating my convictions makes more progress than I expected.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 5d

It's wild to me that Cuomo would choose to sling "dual citizenship" accusations around, given how hard he's been trying to portray himself as the candidate who will protect Jewish people from Mamdani's evil Muslim ways. He has to be aware that that's a classic antisemitic canard, right? Right?

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Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · 6d

Being "tough on crime" is just a call for deterrence. And study after study has shown that deterrence doesn't work, except to sate society's demand for vengeance, to treat "criminals" cruelly. And THAT isn't even deterrence at all. It's retribution, and it precludes rehabilitation.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

One of the few reasons I ever truly wanted to be rich was so that I could install pneumatic tubes everywhere in my house. I loved going to the bank with my mom as a kid just to watch the checks magically fly into the building. Thanks for the nostalgic reminder!

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

Academia has always been about *who* you know as much as it's about *what* you know. And it's even more about how you're perceived by the people with the power to make you or break you. The reason for DEI in academia is that it brings us *closer* to the meritocracy that academia purports to be.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

I constantly wonder, when I see the sign on my office door reading "Dr. Doyle", whether I got there on merit, or if it's "because of my reproductive organs". It's probably a mix of the two. After all, he's certainly not the only racist misogynist in academia.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

But were I a woman, his interest in me wouldn't have been intellectual. And were I Black, his interest would have been in shoving me aside for someone who fit his mold.

It still messes with me to this day, twenty years after we met, ten years after I found out who he was.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

And it made me realize that he viewed me as a person, despite my lower-class trappings, because they were superficial. I deserved to be there, in his mind, because I was, after all, a white guy. I could be polished into someone just like him.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

There hasn't been a next time, and I can't imagine there ever will be. He'd been suspended for having a relationship with a student, then later quit to marry another of his students. He wrote an op-ed about how Black students at Princeton were wrong for complaining about racism there.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

Once I started grad school, I stopped back by the ol' alma mater to thank him for setting me down this path. Only he wasn't around, and there were whispers that he'd been put on leave for some reason. Ah, well, I'll catch him next time.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

It always seemed like he felt that I was a diamond in the rough; that he could see through the shroud of my language to the merit at my core. I felt like he judged me, but after all, that's what professors are supposed to do! So I worked hard to impress him.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

Yeah, he could be a little mean at times, and he definitely enjoyed chuckling at my Pittsburghese syntax from time to time, but that was part of what set me down my path. why was my language subtly different from everyone else's? Why was it perceived as non-prestige? What could I do about it?

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

My very first semester at college, I took a freshman seminar with a linguistics professor. He seemed like exactly the kind of guy I imagined myself being in the future. Erudite, funny, approachable, engaging, and incredibly knowledgeable. No way I would've gone for a ling minor without him.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

How many opportunities would I have lost if I hadn't been someone who fit people's (unfair) expectations of an academic? White man, average size, glasses, neutral US accent. I can tell you for sure that I wouldn't have gotten one big opportunity, the one that kick-started my career.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

All this "academia is too woke" garbage really burns my beans.

Here's a little secret that everyone outside academia ought to know: it ain't some pure and perfect meritocracy. We need more representation of people who aren't me.

Sorry for this, but it's story hour. 🧵

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 6d

Nothing can prepare you for the factual basis behind this 'wokeness gone too far' anecdote.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

Oh, also, Talking Heads' "Slippery People" from the Stop Making Sense live album. Really good stuff. This concludes Gabe's Music Minute; thanks for tuning in.

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Prescriptivism Must Die! @mgrammar.bsky.social · 6d

Some nights I'll listen to a shuffle of all the music on my computer, and occasionally a song will hit me differently, and better, than usual.

Tonight, it was Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself". Way more of a bop than I had remembered!

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Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 6d

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