E.J. Pryor

Me learning about creaky voice in linguistics classes: oooh neat

Me trying to learn a language with phonemic creaky voice: oh no I do not like this one bit

I’ve been searching for hotels in Denmark for the upcoming trip, so it makes sense that I was seeing a lot of ads for hotels in Copenhagen, but the algorithm seems to have gone haywire because now I’m getting multiple ads, from various companies, for hotels and tours in Baku

Looking out over a darkened residential neighborhood toward a dramatic sunrise of peach and salmon breaking through dark gray-blue clouds. Mt Hood is visible in silhouette on the horizon.

The consolations of 6 AM

Wikipedia screenshot: Napoléon is the French form of the Italian given name Napoleone. Notable people with the name include: Bonapartes Athletes Artists Military officials Politicians and other leaders

I love how this makes it seem like Bonaparte is just a career choice

I love this, thank you. Every language deserves cat-based pedagogy.

Fluffy black cat lying on the floor with a flattened cardboard box laying across his belly

Diagram demonstrating German prepositions using cartoon illustrations of a cat positioned variously in relation to a box

Dima is fine with any/all prepositions

Fluffy black cat lying on the floor with a flattened cardboard box laying across his belly

Diagram demonstrating German prepositions using cartoon illustrations of a cat positioned variously in relation to a box

Dima is fine with any/all prepositions

Hard to remember that long ago because at 40 I’ve somehow managed to exist for 87 years.

Okay, high bar, but I think I just barely managed it. Down to the wire, really.

The answer to the question of how Danish plural morphology works, btw, is: “Total chaos. Abandon all hope.”

I searched “Danish plurals” on google trying to make sense of my duolingo lesson and google told me: “The plural of danish is ‘danishes’ or ‘Danish pastries’.”

My plans to make pierogi from scratch are always foiled by the visceral revulsion I feel whenever I google recipes and see the word “pierogies”

My plans to make pierogi from scratch are always foiled by the visceral revulsion I feel whenever I google recipes and see the word “pierogies”

Before the “that’s not a robin” people show up: Yes it is. The American robin, which is really a kind of thrush, is much larger, less borbular, and more likely to inspire thoughts of “that bird looks like it wants to break my legs” than the unrelated European variety

Photo of an American robin taken head on so the beak isn’t visible and it just looks like a disgruntled pear with legs

Going through some of my old photos and I found this portrait of a robin. Such an elegant creature.

VILYAM SHEKSPIR'S SONETN (William Shakespeare's Sonnets, in yiddish)

i generally prefer reading yiddish written in the alef-beys but sometimes there's something undeniably good about seeing it transliterated into roman script

The children yearn for the blogs

If it’s true that people prefer video to text, why is it that half the videos I see are just someone stupidly pointing down, telling me to read the caption, and then the caption is six paragraphs of awkwardly formatted text that I have to rush through before the algorithm serves up another video?

Also someone (not naming names) clearly got a little greedy when they were handing out vowels and just got back in line like five times.

“The 26 vowel phonemes of Standard Danish…” gtfø

Dreamt I had a bumper sticker that said:

“Don’t Honk I’m Just an NPC*:

*I’m (N)ever not thinking about the (P)olish-Lithuanian (C)ommonwealth”

I appreciate the understatement, Wikipedia: “the orthography [of Danish] is characterized by a low degree of correspondence between writing and pronunciation.”

Doing some Danish in Duolingo to prepare for my upcoming honeymoon, not expecting to be able to speak but just to be able to connect letters to sounds in order to read signs, pronounce place names, etc., and I just have to say, speaking as someone with an academic linguistics background: wtf?

Foggy street view: yellow street lamps dotting a thick blue blanket of fog

The world is missing this morning

Foggy street view: yellow street lamps dotting a thick blue blanket of fog

The world is missing this morning

Looking forward to prerorgative

I just learned that a nuclear accident in which a critical mass of fissile material is accidentally created is called a criticality excursion, which sounds so cute. Just a jaunty little neutron picnic.

I’m mostly motivated by linguistic disappointment. Like come on, language, I know you can be better than this. You’re not even trying. You’re just wasting my time and your parents’ money, as my piano tutor used to tell me.

Screenshot from Bluesky drafts: “Sorry I didn’t respond to your email but I was busy creating a powerpoint to explain to my husband why I need a hammered dulcimer”

Ha, I was in the middle of typing this when I saw your reply

Portland! This looks great and you should come. Feb 21, 7:30 PM.

Bonus: it’s at my work, so you could stop by and see the very desk that I cry at every day.

Smoked salmon cream cheese is a staple of many Jewish events and we have a whole cheesecake holiday, so why have I never seen a smoked salmon cheesecake? And should I remedy that for Shavuos this year?