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Mercedes Durham

@drswissmiss

Multilingual, multicultural, multilovely. Professor of Sociolinguistics at Cardiff University πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­πŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ·σ ¬σ ³σ ΏπŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Currently studying varieties of Welsh English She/her

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01.07.2023
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Latest posts by Mercedes Durham @drswissmiss

2 Camembert rounds on plates, standing vertically, with a section cut out so it looks like a mouth and a tuft of hair on top

One is labelled "Camembert", the other is labelled "Camemernie", like th3 characters from Sesame Street

2 Camembert rounds on plates, standing vertically, with a section cut out so it looks like a mouth and a tuft of hair on top One is labelled "Camembert", the other is labelled "Camemernie", like th3 characters from Sesame Street

Doomscrolling break...

Cartoon by Emiel Stevenhagen (emielscartoons)

"Camembert"

07.03.2026 17:49 πŸ‘ 38 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
a cat is sitting in front of a laptop computer asking for advice ALT: a cat is sitting in front of a laptop computer asking for advice

Please signal boost πŸ™ Neurodivergent PhD students: What reasonable adjustments and accommodations do you have for your studies? My
PhD is in English Literature, I have ADHD (combined type), and I’m struggling. I would like to make changes, but I don’t know what might help.

07.03.2026 18:09 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Renaud generally makes me feel bad for all the non-French speakers who can't enjoy his awesome slang and lovely 'tournures de phrase' (see Mistral Gagnant) but this song is new to me.

06.03.2026 16:56 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
It is not because you are   Renaud
It is not because you are Renaud YouTube video by FrΓ©dΓ©ric Courtois

(Everything is awful, I know)
But for the weekend have a gorgeous example of (staged) French-English code switching.
Renaud - It is not because you are
Pondering how my students will react if I use it in class πŸ˜‚
#linguistics #franglais #renaud
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw1p...

06.03.2026 16:51 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸŽ‰ πŸŽ‰ Enjoy your break!

06.03.2026 16:05 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

When someone says β€žScientists do not want you to knowβ€œ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

03.03.2026 12:10 πŸ‘ 9470 πŸ” 4118 πŸ’¬ 77 πŸ“Œ 164
Street name "Prince Andrew Court" with the last part crossed out and changed to "caught".

Street name "Prince Andrew Court" with the last part crossed out and changed to "caught".

cot-caught-court on a British high street ;-) #linguistics

02.03.2026 22:46 πŸ‘ 92 πŸ” 25 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Noone who voted for Labour to give Kier that massive mandate they keep harping on about voted for anything that looked even vaguely like this.

01.03.2026 22:20 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Clear points about why AI-generated summaries are problematic despite claims by some that they're supposedly less problematic than other genAI use.

Can I summarize this long text for you? NOPE, NOPE, NOPE

25.02.2026 13:03 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
PΓ’tΓ© chinois - Wikipedia

Definitely a case of Quebec French is very different from European French - had to check it out on Wikipedia cos it was completely new to me en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A2...

24.02.2026 20:12 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Currently reviewing an RCUK grant and AI is indeed not allowed for that. Otherwise... 😭😭

23.02.2026 11:09 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Sign on wall (of soon to be opening coffee shop) showing picture of dog snuggling with words: β€œPontcanna, we’ll be there now in a minute…”

Sign on wall (of soon to be opening coffee shop) showing picture of dog snuggling with words: β€œPontcanna, we’ll be there now in a minute…”

#WelshEnglish side project:
Shops in South Wales using β€˜now in a minute’ to advertise they’re opening soon. #enregisterment #commodification #nowinaminute
(Separate study - why the quotation marks)

19.02.2026 10:06 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

So I just found out that a cheeky term for a teacher in the Regency period was β€œHaberdasher of Pronouns.”

I love the image of someone selling pronouns like buttons. Do we need to bring this back?

19.02.2026 07:02 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

Bunch o' (socio) linguistics/language ideologies happening right here

16.02.2026 19:59 πŸ‘ 36 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

How many times, in how many contexts, in how many ways am I going to have to say that this is what "AI" doesβ€” what it fundamentally *is*β€” before it sinks in? That all Bullshit engines do is statistically correlate training data & inputs via their weights to produce outputs you are likely to accept…

15.02.2026 03:57 πŸ‘ 2362 πŸ” 711 πŸ’¬ 46 πŸ“Œ 31

UK is handling badly (as usual though) cos afaik most countries do let you in on their own expired passport for example (if you have another one that allows you to board first) - but maybe visas make that harder

14.02.2026 08:57 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

You can switch passports on airline (though right now I usually just put uk down and show Swiss passport in Geneva). In practice I’ve always shown most relevant passport at border. Probably because US has always required their citizens to show american passport to enter country.

14.02.2026 08:55 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
three panel webcomic
1st panel: one man says to another "we invented a robot that answers questions"
2nd panel: he continues "we just have to feed it 10 baby giraffes a day"
3rd panel: the other man asks "but it answers the questions correctly?" and the first man replies "oh my goodness, no. no no no no no."

three panel webcomic 1st panel: one man says to another "we invented a robot that answers questions" 2nd panel: he continues "we just have to feed it 10 baby giraffes a day" 3rd panel: the other man asks "but it answers the questions correctly?" and the first man replies "oh my goodness, no. no no no no no."

It's Mandatory Monday and AI is clearly the future.
mandatoryrollercoaster.com/post/8081046...

09.02.2026 20:27 πŸ‘ 2147 πŸ” 772 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 15

I don't know if it's really clear, outside of coverage of Mpls and pockets of organizing elsewhere, that hundreds of thousands of people are actively and at every level of society fighting our government as it abducts and imprisons and torments our neighbors.

12.02.2026 01:09 πŸ‘ 2381 πŸ” 665 πŸ’¬ 13 πŸ“Œ 10

In the last few years we lost Luke Perry, Shannen Doherty, Michelle Trachtenberg, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, now James Van Der Beek. I’m sure I forgot someone but it hurts seeing so many names I grew up with leave us at such a young age.

11.02.2026 19:51 πŸ‘ 70 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 4

AI is built on stolen labor and powered by data centers that are and will be placed in Black communities to poison us. It's really clear.

11.02.2026 19:41 πŸ‘ 220 πŸ” 87 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

I know we're all busy but if you live in the UK and have 20-30 mins (maybe less if you don't go into detail) to respond to the government consultation about settlement, please do (I'm going to try do it tonight or tomorrow morning). The attached guide with a link to consulation is very useful.

11.02.2026 11:44 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image Post image Post image

Reform is threatening Bangor University over a student society’s decision. The society isn’t Bangor Universityβ€”but this is a neat preview of how a Reform government would work: public money for supporters only. Trump-style politics, UK edition.

Authoritarian reflex is already working just fine.πŸ‘‡

10.02.2026 09:32 πŸ‘ 243 πŸ” 120 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 29
Preview
AI Chatbot That Only Responds β€˜Huh’ Valued At $200 Billion PALO ALTO, CAβ€”Hailing the new product as a β€œgame changer” in the development of large language models, Silicon Valley insiders confirmed Tuesday that an AI chatbot that only responds β€œhuh” had been va...

The onion remains undefeated in delivering the most accurate news.

theonion.com/ai-chatbot-t...

09.02.2026 04:00 πŸ‘ 1211 πŸ” 264 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 11
Post image Post image

I don’t want to laugh at a small business but also VERY funny

06.02.2026 13:40 πŸ‘ 3110 πŸ” 829 πŸ’¬ 58 πŸ“Œ 109
Oral history is a history built around people. It thrusts life into history itself
and it widens its scope. It allows heroes not just from the leaders, but also from
the unknown majority of the people. It encourages teachers and students to become fellow-workers. It brings history into, and out of, the community. It helps the less privileged, and especially the old, towards dignity and self-confidence. It makes for contact - and thence understanding - between social classes, and between generations, And to individual historians and others, with shared meanings, it can give asense of belonging to a place or in time. In short it makes for fuller human beings.

Oral history is a history built around people. It thrusts life into history itself and it widens its scope. It allows heroes not just from the leaders, but also from the unknown majority of the people. It encourages teachers and students to become fellow-workers. It brings history into, and out of, the community. It helps the less privileged, and especially the old, towards dignity and self-confidence. It makes for contact - and thence understanding - between social classes, and between generations, And to individual historians and others, with shared meanings, it can give asense of belonging to a place or in time. In short it makes for fuller human beings.

I've been reading about oral history today and as something I've built a lot of my work around, and something I'm intending to bring into my research, I just loved this paragraph by Paul Thompson that articulates some of how I feel about it.

'It makes for fuller human beings.' Lovely.

04.02.2026 16:04 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Straight into next year's sociolinguistics lecture

03.02.2026 09:45 πŸ‘ 10 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

In the UK academic recession, you will be at one of these stages since many unis buy the same cuts model from the same consultancies. It is always the same process:
*Talk of belt-tightening
*Incidental savings (e.g. printing, refreshments)
*Travel budgets cut
*Promotion freeze (1/4)

02.02.2026 20:29 πŸ‘ 145 πŸ” 74 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 23
Preview
Cardiff and Essex post deficits after big spend on severance pay Financially troubledΒ institutions pushed further into the red, withΒ Aberdeen, Robert Gordon and Sheffield Hallam also losing money

Many days I get told awful news from universities that isn't even being reported now. That's... a bad sign. No-one has a plan, no-one's in charge, no-one knows what to do, no-one's even got reliable data. So little left to say or do if I'm honest.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cardiff...

30.01.2026 10:14 πŸ‘ 50 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3
List of shibboleths - Wikipedia

There's a whole depressing list of them
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

30.01.2026 10:07 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1