Love this. I built out myself a DnD character sheet - I take double psychic damage and have disadvantage in direct sunlight like a drow.
03.03.2026 20:10
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Love this. I built out myself a DnD character sheet - I take double psychic damage and have disadvantage in direct sunlight like a drow.
A song about the bracketing ambiguity of PETSMART by Ben Lapidus. www.youtube.com/shorts/gM8a6... #Linguistics
Ai is like: we can summarize and article for you
Me: you mean the abstract
AI: yes but it also might be wrong :)
Cuckoos have a reputation problem. Brood parasitism has associated them with devious behavior and its call has become a synonym for insanity. But is this simply a case of bad PR?
We'll find out this Tuesday at Wicked Ways!
Get your tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/wicked-way...
National Grammar Day is almost here, and submissions are now open for the ACES National Grammar Day Poetry Contest.
Learn more and apply: https://aceseditors.org/awards/aces-national-grammar-day-poetry-contest
A chart that shows the number of Google searches for each Pokémon. The text says: In honor of Pokémon Day, ACE.com, the free-to-play social gaming website, has analyzed Pokémon-related Google search data across the United States over the last 36 months to determine fans' favorite characters. Rank Name Generation Monthly searches 1 Pikachu Generation 1 685,100 2 Flamigo Generation 9 374,600 3 Charizard Generation 1 310,900 4 Charmeleon Generation 1 250,400 5 Squirtle Generation 1 215,800 6 Eevee Generation 1 214,500 7 Mewtwo Generation 1 209,100 8 Snorlax Generation 1 207,600 9 Gengar Generation 1 192,100 10 Ditto Generation 1 175,500 11 Bulbasaur Generation 1 171,600 12 Charmander Generation 1 169,400 13 Grafaiai Generation 9 166,900 14 Gardevoir Generation 3 149,800 15 Lopunny Generation 4 144,900
“Hey boss, are you sure Flamigo is more popular than Charizard, and people aren’t just misspelling ‘Flamingo’ on Google?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course Flamigo is more popular than Charizard, Mewtwo, Eevee, and Snorlax. Send the email.”
Hey.
Tell people when they do good job.
When you like the stuff they make.
When you like the characters they’ve created.
The stories they’ve told.
Nobody hears it as often as you think bc everyone thinks everyone hears it all the time.
Trust. They don’t.
Tell. Them.
I really appreciate this TikToker with Tourette syndrome, Shay, for taking the time to educate so many of us (including me) about her disability and coprolalia in light of what happened at the BAFTAs with John Davidson when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage.
I learned a lot.
In a note embedded on top of an FAQ question, “What is the average length of stay for the aliens?” Tim Kaiser, the deputy chief of staff for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, asked David Venturella, a former GEO Group executive whom The Washington Post described as an adviser overseeing an ICE division that manages detention center contracts, to “Please confirm” that the average stay for the new mega detention centers would be 60 days. Venturella replied in a note that remained visible on the published document, “Ideally, I'd like to see a 30-day average for the Mega Center but 60 is fine.”
NEW: DHS left embedded comments in a PDF outlining its plans to warehouse immigrants, identifying the architects and laying bare the gross extent of its regulatory capture. Great scoop by @regret.bsky.social:
www.wired.com/story/metada...
A system built to eat people never stops eating people.
New on the Wordnik blog: Five Words from ... The Notebook, by Roland Allen (
@zibaldoni.bsky.social): blog.wordnik.com/five-words-f...
Types of headaches: editor edition.
A screenshot from the game Plinbo at the ball shop - one of the two options is the Driftleft Ball with the description "Chance to go left +15%"
A screenshot from the game Plinbo showing the triangular shape, with two balls approaching the bottom slots - 0.2x multiplier in the middle, 10x muliplier on the far left and right sides.
Played the new roguelike Plinko game Plinbo this weekend and discovered the DRIFTLEFT and DRIFTRIGHT balls, which are more likely to drop to the left or right (respectively) than a standard ball - therefore more likely to fall into outer slots with higher multipliers. #CutthroatCompounds
Great post! My favorite of these by far is GENDY NOOCH for gender neutral. It was on my personal WOTY list, but I didn't think about the larger trend. www.tiktok.com/@simulatedha... (duet from March 2023)
I've added CLIPPY COMPS to my self-definer list now: www.wordnik.com/lists/terms-...
@kirbyconrod.bsky.social made it to the @boingboing.net summary, I become "an expert" 😁 boingboing.net/2026/02/10/t...
Happily, I'm quoted in the NYT today about words cyclically coming back into use, like earworms from forgotten songs. English has a rich trove of vocab to pull from, and any song, book, or movie can bring those words back in rotation. Thanks @samcorbin.bsky.social! www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/c...
Since it's Olympics time again, and there are many non-English names that you're going to want to say as accurately as possible (especially if you're a broadcaster), here's a thread of my relevant pronunciation tip videos over the last 8 years.
Note that even if I don't specifically cover the name…
I am someone who has consistently been masking and who will continue to mask! it's not too late to start again! practice community care :)
new podcast episode up on the patreon. buckaroos asked for some heavy music recommendations so here you go: anything on THREE ONE G records, XCOMM, THE ARMED, ECCA VANDAL, THE BLOOD BROTHERS and IDLES. full episode here www.patreon.com/posts/provin...
Maggie the curious California Magpie is ready for the first Curiosity Guild...
Y'all... I'm autistic and have PTSD. Please, show up and cause me sensory issues and trigger my anxiety responses if it's going to keep government goons from taking me to a concentration camp. Please, by all means, do.
Like... do WHATEVER you have to do, please.
Sometimes I get a really good quote in.
“Pointing out that AI is prone to giving ICE bad information is missing the entire point of ICE,” EFF’s @evacide told @RollingStone. “They don’t care if the information they have is good.”
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
reminder that blocking doesn't force unfollow, so worth temporarily unblocking to double check you've unfollowed too
a used Carvana salesfish might sell me an eelectrik vehicle :)
Official Bulbapedia drawing of the Pokemon Carvanha, which looks like a round blue/red fish with tusks and spiky yellow fins
Cool lore building can come from not implementing spelling reform in fictional worlds: CARVANHA (Gen III Pokemon) is named after PIRANHA which comes from Tupi (+CAR from Latin/French carnivore). Evokes a lot for English speakers by just including that H. #AmResearching
Doing the thing to mock it is still doing the thing.
Don’t do the thing.
A podcast promotional graphic for Grammar Girl on an orange background. It features a portrait of a smiling woman with long brown hair. Text reads: Episode 1154: Scarecrows and other 'cutthroat' compounds. Reading versus listening. Squirrel Hill Tunnel. The Grammar Girl logo and QDT logo are at the bottom.
You may not have noticed, but "scarecrow" is a grammatical outlaw — it describes what the object does, not what it is.
Linguists call these "exocentric compounds."
They're also called "cutthroat compounds" because they have a surprising history as medieval insults.
Listen: pod.link/173429229
Here's how to identify some crowd control munitions, canisters of which federal agents have left on the ground after deploying them against people in Minnesota. bit.ly/3YWp1jE
Graphic by Mark Boswell/The Minnesota Star Tribune
We the people have the power. Join us tomorrow, January 26, for a virtual training on how to exercise your right to document ICE abuses in your community.
RSVP using the link below. When using that link, Indivisible will know you came from us; their privacy policy applies.
