Lucas Lawson

Love this little snippet!! I hope it helps many more people find the endless joy that is @lingthusiasm.com

I stand in solidarity with the more than 31,000 Kaiser nurses and health care workers on strike in California and Hawaii.

It’s well past time for Kaiser to return to the table with a fair offer for their workers that includes safer staffing ratios and higher wages.

We have plenty of examples in history of how people have stood up to ambitious men. Let’s use their example as a way to guide us moving forward.

These rights are being taken from us by men with values that are not our own. We’re told that if we do not follow their values, we are the enemy. As a people we are not told if we are good or bad, we determine that ourselves. Our values are not dictated by the ambitions of a sad man.

When those in power disrespect and ignore the laws that protect our values and norms, they attack our society. We do not have rights because of words on a paper. We have rights because we fought for them and collectively agreed to follow them and punish those who break them.

We do not have our rights as citizens because of words on a paper. We live everyday according to shared values and norms we’ve collectively agreed to. Those in power create and manage laws that represent our values. They uphold these laws so that we can live in a more secure and peaceful society.

From Caesar to Stalin we’ve seen ambitious men with private armies take up populous causes to achieve personal power. These men seek to gain power and loyalty with promises of a golden age, promises of a time where their people will reach new heights. They do not promise peace They promise grandeur

Our highest loyalty doesn't belong to people or parties. It belongs to principles.

If you wouldn't accept it from your opponents, you shouldn't accept it from your allies.

Integrity is standing by your values even when your own group violates them.

Remember.

Ending several texts in a row with “lol” is the playtime dog sneeze of millennial discourse.

Don’t forget to add bidets!!!

In celebration of Mamdani's first day in office, the map from our 2016 NYC atlas celebrating Queens as the most linguistically diverse place on earth. (800 languages spoken in NYC, according to NY's Endangered Language Institute, which collaborated with us on this map.

Linguaphile Magazine We are a non-profit magazine exploring the essence of languages and the cultures they shape. From endangered dialects to the global impact of multilingualism, we delve into the stories behind the worl...

Linguaphile Magazine is crowdfunding printing for their first physical edition. It looks very beautiful.

www.linguaphilemagazine.org

This project received a 2024 #lingcomm grant commendation, it's exciting to see this turn into a physical product!

Spanish ‘tengo un sueño’ means “I have a dream”.

In contrast, ‘tengo sueño’ means “I’m sleepy” (lit. “I have sleep”).

Why does ‘sueño’ mean both “sleep” and “dream”, two very different things?

It’s because ‘sueño’ and ‘sueño’ are different words – with a different etymology.

My graphic explains:

I try not to be antagonistic on social media much, but I need to be very clear: if you do not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with trans people, you are on the wrong side of history, my pal.

In Hitler's last will and testament, dictating hours before he committed suicide, 80 years ago in April 1945, he insisted that no one had wanted war in 1939. It had been forced on him by 'international Jewry and its helpers.'

The words "host" and "guest" are from the same source, with "host" reaching us via French, and "guest" reaching us via Old Norse.

#etymology

Here are a few of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence.

These were the justification for the revolution and the break with Britain.

Happy Liberation Day to all who support these tariffs. I hope you’re liberated from your savings due to higher prices and liberated from the idea that these will make our country a better place to live.

Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects

So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.bsky.social?

And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?

Just finished listening to this episode and I feel so seen!!! Recently, I’ve felt embarrassed(?) for liking linguistic relativity when I first got into linguistics. But I must admit that the concept fueled my passion for wanting to understand language and better connect with people. Great episode!

A movie poster for "Bouba's Delivery Service", where Kiki (the witch) has been replaced by the round figure usually associated with bouba in the classic linguistics experiments "kiki and bouba"

@lingthusiasm.bsky.social

Happy Friday! Did you know that the name “Friday” comes from the Old English “Frigedæg” ‘Frigga’s Day’? Frigga is the Germanic goddess of love, and the name for Friday is a *calque* (loan translation) of the Latin phrase “diēs Vēneris” ‘Venus’ day’. #linguistics #language

Moreover, the Proto-Indo-European root of “Frigga” is *pri- ‘love’, which also yielded words like “friend” and “free” and “freedom”. So Friday etymologically could also be called “Free Day”, which I think is appropriate since it’s the day you’re finally free from work.

#TGIF #Friday #etymology

I learned today from the 8 year old that the imperative is now called ‘bossy verbs’😅. Unironically love it

A government by the people (who are in favor of corruption and hate), for the people (who are in favor of corruption and hate) is a really crappy type of democracy.

The most worrisome aspect about today’s politics is not that corrupt, self-serving individuals have power (that has always been the case), but that so many people are OK with corruption as long as it’s “their person” doing it.

Dan, maybe this episode isn’t a “solution” one but an analytical one. What’s happening now from a 50,000 ft perspective? How does our current situation compare to other cults of personality and times when truth was such a dividing topic? Just thoughts… maybe this is not how to think about it….

This is a thing that fascist regimes always do, and it’s specially designed to terrorize brown people here. I spoke about it on TikTok www.tiktok.com/t/ZP821vydf/

Photo of novelist, storyteller, essayist, playwright, scholar, translator, and perennial front-runner for the Nobel Prize in Literature Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, an iconic figure in postcolonial thought. Also photo of latest book, The Language of Languages, the first book dedicated to his writings on translation and the status of African languages, globally and in Africa today.

"There are very few, if any, monolingual nations in the world. What most have is an officially imposed language as the national language: the language of power.. a dictatorship of the monolingual on a plurality of languages and it negates the human right to one's
language."
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o