Stan Carey
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stancarey.bsky.social
Stan Carey
@stancarey.bsky.social
4.6K followers 250 following 1.8K posts
Editor, writer, lapsed biologist in the west of Ireland

Copy-editing, writing: https://stancarey.com
Language: https://stancarey.wordpress.com
Strong language: https://stronglang.wordpress.com
🎞 https://letterboxd.com/stancarey
🦣 @[email protected]
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stancarey.bsky.social
Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · Nov 10
I should introduce myself, now that the world is ending. I'm a freelance copy-editor/proofreader from Ireland. And I write, mostly about language: stancarey.com
stancarey.wordpress.com

I hike a bit and always have a book on the go and a film in mind. Background in biology; environmentalist at heart
Stan Carey editing and proofreading | Tidy, tighten, or transform your text
stancarey.com
stancarey.bsky.social
Beautiful film. I saw Morgiana during a recent binge of Herz after realizing he directed both the amazing The Cremator (1969) and the peculiar Ferat Vampire (1982)

Can also recommend Beauty and the Beast (1978) and The Ninth Heart (1979) if you're into stylish, offbeat Eurogothic fables #FilmSky
jacquiwine.bsky.social JacquiWine @jacquiwine.bsky.social · 4h
MORGIANA (Juraj Herz, 1972). Loved this vivid Czech Gothic drama - a tale of two sisters involving jealousy, greed, poisoning, lavish costumes and a striking Siamese cat. The hair and make-up are gloriously over the top, especially for Viktoria, the evil one in this twisted scenario. #FilmSky
Iva Janzurova as Victoria. She is wearing a black gown and silver-coloured necklaces while raising a china cup to her lips. Her black hair, black eye-make-up and red lipstick are very dramatic. The same actress also plays Victoria’s good sister, Klara, seen here propped up in bed while wearing a low-cut black-and-while gown. Her curly red hair and dark eye make-up are rather dramatic. Morgiana, the Siamese cat with her bright blue eyes. (Three fingers are visible on her shoulder as she is being held by a woman.) A DVD of MORGIANA, a film by Juraj Herz, showing an illustration of the two sisters positioned as in a ying-and-yang symbol.
November 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
sellybeth.bsky.social
I'm rapidly approaching homelessness. I'm also grieving my mum. I don't have the spoons for visiting strangers off daft.ie and trying to come off as a fun and likeable person to live with. If anyone knows of a room coming available in Dublin, please let me know

#SpéirGhorm #SpéirGorm
November 28, 2025 at 5:04 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
from Woman's Way, 1970 #cheese #manfood
Black and white ad from Woman's Way magazine in 1970. It has a big photo captioned "Win a Man!" with six men smiling at the camera, looking relaxed. They're all white, different clothing styles, and different ages, maybe 20s to 50s. A smaller photo below shows a woman in 1970s fashionable dress serving a suited man a plate of cheese; his hands are raised in delight. Text reads: "No, this is not a competition. It's a gentle hint. Cheese makes a man feel great. So use a little cunning. Serve a man cheese. And win his heart." A slogan reads, "Cheese is manfood!" with a graphic of a cylindrical chunk of cheese with a slice removed.
November 29, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
john-self.bsky.social
“I write twelve pages to get one page, and I cut all the time. Unless a writer is superb, I don’t think it’s enough just to go wuffling on.”
john-self.bsky.social John Self @john-self.bsky.social · Feb 22
And here's my own tribute to Beryl Bainbridge (and her 1973 novel The Dressmaker in particular).

She should have won the Booker "three or four times," said her friend Paul Bailey* after her death. "Hers were better than the junk that did win."

*they used to watch Corrie and compare notes by phone
The Dressmaker at 50: a novel that encapsulates Beryl Bainbridge’s idiosyncrasies | The Booker Prizes
An uncompromising and funny story of love and death, The Dressmaker was the first of five novels by Beryl Bainbridge to be shortlisted for the Booker.
thebookerprizes.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:16 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
Some notes on the use and origins of "sleeveen" in Ireland: stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/s...
November 28, 2025 at 12:53 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
Like other forms of cruelty, the homelessness is the point
sealab2021.org Captain Murphy @sealab2021.org · 3d
The thing is we've known that housing the homeless is cheaper than neglect, we've known that Ubi is effective at eliminating poverty, we've known that heavily subsidized housing and education leads people into the middle class, we've known all of these things in some cases for 70 years.
brenttoderian.bsky.social Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 5d
“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

It costs a lot less to house people.
November 27, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
astrokatie.com
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
June 19, 2025 at 11:21 AM
stancarey.bsky.social
"Do they expect students not to be anarchists?" he said. "What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up!"

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
November 27, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
avantgardening.pl
Just found this piece by @stancarey.bsky.social, and it's very good. It might even blow a few holes in your own linguistic prejudices.

A to Z of English usage myths
stancarey.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/a...
A to Z of English usage myths
English usage lore is full of myths and hobgoblins. Some have the status of zombie rules, heeded by millions despite being bogus and illegitimate since forever (split infinitives, preposition-stran…
stancarey.wordpress.com
October 14, 2025 at 11:28 AM
stancarey.bsky.social
I've had this single line from an '80s song as an earworm for weeks now, exactly the way Limmy delivers it. Actually fine with it www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_8U...
Limmy's Show: Gotta Take a Little Time
YouTube video by Limmy
www.youtube.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
hiphilangsci.bsky.social
Happy World Linguistics Day 🎉

Not Saussure how to celebrate? Episodes 12 and 13 of our podcast will give your plans some structure...

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2021/02/01/p...

🎙️ hiphilangsci.net/2021/03/01/p...

#LinguisticBirthdays #LinguisticQuotes #Histlx #WorldLinguisticsDay
"Dans la langue, il n'y a que des différences sans termes positifs [=In a language, there are only differences and no positive terms.]" (Ferdinand de Saussure: Cours de linnguistique générale, p. 166)
November 26, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
stancarey.bsky.social
I see so many images on Bluesky that I'd like to repost but don't because they have no alt text. So many!

I know we've been conditioned away from courtesy and kindness online, but a little effort with alt text goes a long way
July 3, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
alyssaharad.bsky.social
I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
blipstress.bsky.social violet allen @blipstress.bsky.social · 4d
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
November 25, 2025 at 11:07 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
On the growth of Irish-language learning in Britain
www.rte.ie/news/2025/11...
Celtic revival: The growth of Gaeilge in Britain
There's been a significant surge in interest in learning the Irish language in Britain, according to those involved in teaching it. One of the largest online education providers in the UK, City Lit, s...
www.rte.ie
November 26, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
armavirumque.bsky.social
"A variant spelling, interestification, sounds as though it might be something that enhances your interest in a subject. It’s certainly a process being carefully watched by nutritionists."

www.worldwidewords.org/tp-int4.html
November 26, 2025 at 11:36 AM
stancarey.bsky.social
"Interesterification" does not, regrettably, refer to something becoming more interesting but to a chemical reaction that requires breaking and reforming ester bonds
November 26, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
mgrammar.bsky.social
My closing thought is the same as it's been for years: companies want to make LLMs into liability avoidance devices. Someone at IBM figured this out in 1979 and put this in a presentation, and it's only become more accurate over time: blog.apaonline.org/2023/04/13/r...
All caps text: “A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” For more on this, see: https://blog.apaonline.org/2023/04/13/responsibility-and-automated-decision-making-draft/
November 26, 2025 at 5:45 AM
stancarey.bsky.social
Share a '90s movie that you think deserves more love
DVD cover for "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" (1993), a documentary film by Steven M. Martin. It has a photo of Leon Theremin as a young man, playing the instrument he invented. There's a lens flare coming off it, and planets and flying saucers in the background. The film title is in wavy orange futuristic all-caps, and it has a "Sundance winner" badge and two thumbs up from Siskel & Ebert. The slogan at the bottom reads, "The music he created was strange. His life was even stranger."
November 25, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
twigtechnology.bsky.social
Seals singing in a sea cave

#Orkney 🦭🎧
November 21, 2025 at 5:54 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
Satisfying to hear "Sapiens" skewered on @ifbookspod.bsky.social: www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/epis...
Sapiens - If Books Could Kill
How do you tell the entire history of humanity in a single book? Whatever you do, do not open a browser window. Thanks to Dorsa Amir, Duncan Stibbard Hawkes and David Perry for help researching a...
www.buzzsprout.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
nnedi.bsky.social
Earlier today, I was notified that someone was at my door.

This is who it was:
A male Anna’s hummingbird at the door. So nosy! 🤣
November 21, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
kieranryan.bsky.social
So, without much ado, we've kind of lost the first major city to climate change. (Tehran, metropolitan area 15 million people.)
chadbourn.bsky.social Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 8d
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian: “When we proposed relocating the capital, we lacked the budget…

“People said it was impossible, but now it’s no longer optional.

“We can’t keep adding population and construction here. Expansion is possible, but the water problem cannot be solved.”
November 21, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Stan Carey
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.
October 17, 2025 at 12:16 PM
stancarey.bsky.social
If you see this, post your getaway vehicle
November 21, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Stan Carey
chestnutfez.bsky.social
Great article. It is going to get ugly.
November 13, 2025 at 3:49 PM