Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦

For those who don’t want to click the link, the movies are:
1) Troop Beverly Hills
2) Rookie of the Year
3) The Devil Wears Prada, and
4) 300.

What happens when they say AI can transcribe that Medieval Latin script: bsky.app/profile/diew...

Thanks for posting this letter from CLIP. Stephen Davies (the director of the project) will be uploading some more letters and images soon. One letter has a story from a POW camp that is amazing. I’ll share it once it’s been added to the website.

An infant in a person's arms. The infant has a striped outfit, which has stripes of different colours (such as red, blue, yellow and green) separated by a thinner white strip. The adult is wearing a blue housecoat with a panda face on it. Over the infant's face is a large, yellow smiling face (because our little emerald is shy).

My little emerald got some shots today. It was tough for a brief moment but we all got through it.

Each year reading week is taken over by people who don’t have their shit together. It’s not happening this term. I’m going to be selfish with my time & not entertain last-minute meetings or admin requests. I don’t want to struggle to keep my head above water in the last few weeks of term.

A damn good point. ⬇️

It’s beyond me why the 6-7 meme is so popular. I understand it but don’t see why it has the popularity of, say, Budweiser‘s “Wassup” from 1999. But then I’m sure loads of ppl thought that was stupid, too. I guess I’m old. Heck, I just referenced something from last century –and used the word “heck”.

I’m getting raise-the-roof vibes from @profgabriele.com and 6-7 vibes from @lollardfish.bsky.social .

I’m increasingly annoyed with people who think lack of planning on their part necessitates an emergency on mine. It doesn’t. Don’t expect me to stop or delay my work just because you can’t get your shit done in a timely manner.

And no, this is not related to students; my students are great.

Reposting this because today I got to learn about the Middle Ages from an academic who knows nothing about the Middle Ages. It was such a treat.

I’m considering making a small sign to hold up whenever an academic spews nonsense at me about the Middle Ages. Any thoughts on what the sign should say?

a man wearing glasses and a silver shirt is pointing at the camera ALT: a man wearing glasses and a silver shirt is pointing at the camera

Getting told I look too young to be teaching at a university is not something I take as an insult – even if it’s intended as one. However, telling the story and hearing someone say “They thought you looked too young?!” is.

The only way this headline could be made more British would be to add something about a queue.

What historians see when people claim AI is solving mysteries that have baffled historians for years.

The cover of Maurice Sendak's book "Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months". It has the title at the top and the author's name at the bottom. There is a blue and yellow rectangular border around the outer edges of the book cover, within which appears a boys dressed in a blue suit eating what we assume is chicken soup with rice. He's eating it out of a yellow bowl and with a yellow spoon.

Made a comment about Tennyson today. My wife's response:
"Come on; you know no Tennyson. You only know Sendak: I told you once, I told you twice are seasons of the year are nice for eating chicken soup with rice".

The number of times I write “Apologies for my delayed response” and “I hope you are well”, or even just the “With best wishes“ or “Sincerely” when what I actually think is … um … well … never mind.

I’ve never tried charades (in any of my classes), but now that you mention it I think I’ll have to give it a go this year.

I agree. Each time I teach the class I show various records relating to coroners’ work & explain how they tie into so many records/aspects of law/life. Many students end up writing a paper on the topic, building on a previous assignment I set on 13th-C plea rolls that links with coroner’ rolls.

A person in a blue shirt with light orange trousers is holding a flail, which is two pieces of stick usually joined by a piece of leather. The tool is used for threshing grain. In this instance, the person is holding the flail over his head. He's about to hit the stalks of some plants, but the plants have been cropped out of the image so it appears as if the person is just about to swing a weapon. Reference: British Library, The Luttrell Psalter

Getting away with crime or getting justice?

Sometimes medieval criminal court records reveal instances in which localities and/or individuals took the punishment of crime into their own hands. The castration case of Tom, son of Leofwin, from the year 1202 is one such case. 🧵1/5

a black and white photo of a man in a prison cell . ALT: a black and white photo of a man in a prison cell .

Talked about coroners last week in my @viuniversity.bsky.social history of crime class. This week we’re talking about gaol (not “jail” autocorrect!) & bail. I find the topic fascinating a have been reworking a publication on this topic since 2017 (I can’t stop adding to it, but I’ll let it go soon).

"Local Priests in the Latin West, 900-1050 is Open Access 😀.

I'm so excited to read this!

Link: www.cambridge.org/core/books/l...

A medieval record written in abbreviated Latin. The ink is brownish-red. The document shows five esses in the margin, each with a notation above them that looks like the number nine. This is actually an abbreviation for the Latin work "suspensus", which means "hanged". In other words, the legal case to which this margin refers includes five verdicts that resulted in hangings.

Marginalia can be depressing. The marginalia next to this case from Nottinghamshire in 1280-81 has five esses, each of which has an abbreviation mark that looks like a nine. This is abbreviated Latin for "suspensus". In other words, five people were hanged.

Alas, he's still not fully recovered (yet).

The three volumes of the "Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources" are fanned out. Each of the books is a hardback. They are ruby red in colour with a black square in the centre. In this black square are written the title and volume number of the book in gold lettering. The black box also has gold lettering around it.

If you have a hard copy of the 3-vol (2018) "Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources" and are looking to pass it on to someone (such as a medievalist trying to produce critical editions of 13th-century texts), then please contact me!

Don’t avoid trying not to decline submitting a letter unless you choose not to refuse uploading it as a PDF.

You’d think, for instance, that people in the sciences battling anti-vaxxers and the likes of RFK jr. would FINALLY realised that they should stop making ridiculous claims about the Middle Ages and acquiesce to experts‘ knowledge. But no. They’ve read a book or heard that [insert dumb statement].

a man says thank you i 'm learning ALT: a man says thank you i 'm learning

I’m increasingly irritated with academics who’ve never studied the Middle Ages yet make claims about the period & tell me their “knowledge” is accurate because, well, they just think it is. They can’t support anything they say with evidence/research and claim “some academics think”. Infuriating! 😡