Erin McKean

If you were laid off from Block (or anywhere) and want to stay remote, @roost.tools is hiring for multiple SWE roles and levels.

If you're the kind of person who's deeply satisfied by figuring out why a service has multiple databases and ripping some out, we might be for you! roost.tools/careers

Sticker with black text on a yellow background reading “I find it kinda bussin’ I find it kinda cap That the dreams in which I’m dying Are the ones that kinda slap”

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”

new post from Daniel on OSS docs! Always worth reading :)

New on the Wordnik blog: Five Words from ... The Notebook, by Roland Allen (
@zibaldoni.bsky.social): blog.wordnik.com/five-words-f...

Roses are red
Violets are prime
This is the sort
Of linguist that I'm

Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%, study finds Cognitive health in later life is ‘strongly influenced’ by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers

new marketing campaign for print dictionaries, as totemic items to ward off dementia: "researchers found higher scores in lifetime enrichment were associated with a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease ... enrichment included ... dictionaries and library cards" www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

This month in Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things: the Odeillo Solar Furnace, broadcasting "Destroy Mount Rushmore", and searching for smells: buttondown.com/thingslearne...

🚨 Tell your Senators to vote NO on the GOP’s so-called “SAVE” Act”, which would:

Require continuing voter purges w/ NO PENALTY for erroneous purges.

Subject election officials to potential PRISON TIME & citizen suits for mistakenly registering a single voter—even if the voter is a citizen! 1/

Study shows Operation Metro Surge costs taxpayers $18 million a week North Star Policy Action, a progressive research institute, released the study Thursday.

18 million per week. That’s what we are collectively paying to hunt and kill people in Minnesota.

I never wanna hear that we can’t afford to take care of our fellow Americans ever again. Healthcare. Education. Infrastructure. We can afford it all.

www.kare11.com/article/news...

If Graham can hold up this bill for venal and treasonous reasons, then @amyklobuchar.com & @smith.senate.gov can block the whole spending package until Dems get the GOP to agree to clawback ICE detention funds.

Angular numbers? 😂

Working on a project bringing linguistics to broader audiences? Apply for a 2026 LingComm Grant! Due: April 30, 2026. Details at link in bio.

Working on a project bringing linguistics to broader audiences?

The 2026 LingComm Grants are $300 USD grants to help you with your project!

Please apply and/or share with any up and coming lingcommers you know!

Details:
lingcomm.org/grants
#linguistics #langsky #lingcomm

and now you can subscribe for vol 2! paperairplane.pub#subscribe

It’s the 11th of the month, time for a new edition of Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things! This month: hemerology, ubuesque, and the fattura della morte buttondown.com/thingslearne...

This implies that when given notice, these facilities will change their behavior and conditions for the better. So... Democrats should be requesting NON-STOP rolling daily visits to these facilities. Whatever the "tour" mode is should become permanent.

The 2025 Word of the Year is "slop," both as a noun for low-quality AI-generated content and as a combining form for anything of little value. Read the full press release. #WOTY2025 #ADS2026 #LSA2026
americandialect.org/2025-word-of...

So sad to learn of John Langdon's death. His words-as-art were always a delight.

Make it viral.

Knowing that you are stable enough handle an emergency - the luxury that shouldn't be a luxury. I hope that, in 2026, that will become reality for many more people in the world.

There's a very nice writeup of my talk at OSS Tokyo in LWN! lwn.net/SubscriberLi... (gift link) Thanks again to the wonderful @kissane.myatproto.social and @ddbeck.com who created the Docs Advisor and Docs Archetypes (github.com/google/opendocs)!

Now would be a great time for a 10 episode, 20 hour prestige series about the ten years between 1916 and 1926, covering the establishment of the 8-hr work day & 5-day work week, in the US. Each episode would be one year & the middle episode should be entirely devoted to the Battle of Blair Mountain.

A well-loved paperback copy of The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper against a plaid background, very festive yet foreboding

it’s today! planning to start my re-read at dusk for the full effect

Merriam-Webster Accused Of Bias After ‘Dictionary’ Named Word Of The Year SPRINGFIELD, MA—Facing intense backlash and scrutiny from critics who say the reference book publisher had failed to take all words into consideration, Merriam-Webster was accused of bias Monday after...

Merriam-Webster Accused Of Bias After ‘Dictionary’ Named Word Of The Year

Word Origins ... and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone Etymology for Everyone

How about bookshop.org/p/books/word...

Announcing the Em Dash Appreciation Society (for Humans).

em-dash-appreciation.org

It's the 11th of the month, and the last month of the year, so this is the "words I recorded in 2025" installment! buttondown.com/thingslearne...

Samuel Johnson: “I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.”

For your enjoyment: a zine combining letterpress blocks and measurement facts: zinebakery.com/assets/homem... via @dhnow.bsky.social

happy International Pie for Breakfast Day to all who celebrate