Sam Corbin

February linkstack Icky brand names, new games, what "coded" means, and more.

More linkstack thanks to @samcorbin.bsky.social @metafilter.bsky.social and @moderntoss.bsky.social! fritinancy.substack.com/p/february-l...

no disrespect to the ancient Roman Republic but couldn’t they have at least put their name in alphabetical order? PQRS was right there

five-year-old came home from school today with chocolate milk stains on every inch of her clothing. “It consploded,” she explains

Thanks to technology, bananas are becoming obsolete as pretend phones. The future belongs to the Pop-Tart.

iambic tetrameter ass stick

it’s so funny to see a mother scolding her son for lightly punching a snowman that is just sitting on a curb

The SYRN Call of Oddly Spelled Brand Names

"If we’re meant to hear 'watermelon water,' why are we reading WTRMLN WTR?"

@samcorbin.bsky.social quotes me and @operativewords.com in her new @nytimes.com piece, "The SYRN Call of Oddly Spelled Brand Names."

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/c...

this just in from new york city: we’re hearing that mayor mamdani just signed an executive order making it illegal to NOT stand at your window and fold your arms and say “wow, it’s really coming down out there”

can’t help but hear undertones of “mueller flipped gorpman (who could testify against bleemer!)” in the message I sent the chat: “ebay acquired depop (which was owned by etsy!)”

YouTube video by WJCT Public Media First Coast Connect: Word to your mother

was fun to yap on the radio about the never-ending slangassaince!

youtu.be/ckzLouiWNMY

I imagine it was extremely disturbing

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

president’s day much!!!

if I didn’t realize it was a friday before, I sure do now: just reread a line of my column about some symbols and saw that I’d called them “simbles”

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

get everyone vying for the tiffany’s browser bracelet. the browselet

a very, very long row of browser tabs

idk should I turn this into a charm bracelet

a jar that says Baps Shayona

I can’t stop hearing this to the tune of “my sharona”

I tried to take a photo of a grasshopper on my windshield, but now it looks like a gigantic bug destroying the town.

for some reason I don’t have drafts and I’m choosing to believe it’s because all of my thoughts are simply too good not to be posted

the "you wouldn't steal a car meme" (white text on a black background, both stylized to look scary and distorted). it has been edited to say " You wouldn't draft a skeet"

Why Kids Are Starting to Sound Like Their Grandparents

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...

they’re dangling porcupine in front of me in that image for a “keeper’s choice” option….wonder if I can request

looking into this!! did you pet him

how is this real. oh my god the little wheezes

apropos of nothing, one of my goals for 2026 is to meet a porcupine. lmk if you can help arrange this

Take me down to the Parallax city where the far moves slow and the near moves quickly

my hot take is that you should not have to read the preface in order to enjoy the book, and if you do, then it’s not a preface

don't worry I am problematizing this theory in chapter one

[emily dickinson voice] "word" is the thing with letters