iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Most days, woking at my alma mater feels nothing like going here. Other days, I find myself eating chicken broccoli bake for lunch in South Quad. #umich #umichdining #tastesthesame

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Style was definitely an oversight that I identified as soon as I started teaching! I can’t decide to put as a single couple foundational reads. Coupland?

Ooh yes. A Milroy belongs here.

Key Concepts in Sociolinguistics

Last week I had to give a short intro on "What is Sociolinguistics" for our first-year Ph.D. proseminar. I whipped up a sheet in 20 mins of key concepts and their prime citations. I've missed several (20 mins!) so now I'm crowdsourcing. What needs added/siwtched? docs.google.com/document/d/1...

docs.google.com

Some key concepts in sociolinguistics Face the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken Goffman, E. (2002). The presentation of self in e...

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 23/09/2026

I don’t know who needs this but BLUE: 4 letters. Even. If your section is even, wear blue. MAIZE: 5 letters. Odd. If your section is odd, wear maize. @umichfball.bsky.social

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 22/09/2026

Yeah there’s been a branch here since at least 2008 which is when I can specifically remember explaining the name to someone.

Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 22/09/2026

Unpopular Michigan hot take from an Ohio defector: Fifth Third Bank is HUGE and just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it isn’t.

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 17/09/2026

Perusall annotation: "Lexicon would be an awesome Transformer name for a Transformer that begins as a Lexus." 💀

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Oh my goodness yes. That curriculum is even often hidden from graduate students.

I am the proud owner of a new iPhone 17 Pro and I would just like to observe that Steve Jobs absolutely would not have put up with this “cameras jutting out of the back of the phone” nonsense.

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I like the idea of Silver shadow boxing.

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 15/09/2026

OMG I am not actually willing to go to X but holy crap this is the WWE fight I've always wanted to see.

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Last name Freely or Everywhere.

Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 10/09/2026

My sports colleague logs on to our research meeting today. "Hey, Jessi. You got a second?" "We got lots! We're just giving them out up here!!!"

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Oh good they did a study. 🙃

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A linguist would like to enter the chat but all the other social sciences have convinced themselves that just knowing language is the same as knowing linguistics....

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My annual conference is in San Francisco this year. Please warn this crew that you are the reason that I'm about to roll up having done a 90 minute journey on transit and uber to have a pizza and a Pliny.

The source and the filter are indeed reversed!

(technically we are meat oboes because there are two vocal folds but I am a single reed player.)

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 08/09/2026

If my contribution to the field of linguistics is the idea that the vocal tract is a "meat clarinet" I will be very fulfilled.

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appendixicse this appendixize this appendicise this ... append this

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 08/09/2026

No idea. Did something happen? I've been scratching my head if something also affected the ability of people who should've gotten middle-school paragraph writing instruction at one point and who now are reliant on LLMs for college. But I can't figure out what it might have been.

Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 07/09/2026

Past me wrote some reading questions in Perusall off the top of her head. Today me wrote some reading questions in Canvas for the same assignment. They are basically the same questions. Happy to discover that Me is a good, consistent teacher at all times.

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 03/09/2026

Michigan gave “pouring rights” to Coke after surveying the campus. And now we do not sell Vernors. This is a hate crime.

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 30/08/2026

Gold star of the day awarded to the journal Gender and Language whose PDF downloads are already named author-year-title-title-title-subtitle-subtitle.pdf. Thank you!

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That! I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

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We had a full union at my previous institution with all campus workers in one union. It meant that faculty were on the line demanding things for the facilities workers. I loved it.

Students: Yes, read your syllabi and know that this information is in them. Parents: Absolutely do not do this. This is unhinged. Also the use of GPT for this purpose is WILD. No, GPT is not likely to summarize my syllabi in a way that will tell you, or your student, what I expect. I tell them.

A Facebook post from a college parents group which reads:

To all the parents sending their kids off to college for freshman ear: one thing I did was research my son's professors and classes through ChatGPT, look at past syllabi, and learn ho each professor runs their classroom, what they expect, and what's important to them. I made him packets so he can review everything before classes start.

This isn't about doing the work for him--it's about teaching him how to prepare. Next year and every year after, he should know that the week before college starts, he needs to research his professors, read his syllabi, know where his classes are, and understand what's expected of him.

He has four years to finish that bachelor's degree. I'm not paying for two extra years! I'd rather help pay for his college experience now so he can graduate with as little debt as possible, start his own business, buy investment properties and build wealth.

And please save the "they're adults, let them figure it out" comments. You parent yours, and I'm going to parent mine. This is parenting beyond the nest.

#BlackMomFromTheHood

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 26/08/2026

This is my favorite linguistics fact. They are all basically named “SHIT that’s a LOT of water!”

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Admire English grammar in this sentence I just sent to tech support: "No, tell the person who told you that that that is not a thing." Relative clauses, relative pronoun and demonstrative pronouns. Check that ish out.

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 26/08/2026

The most recent John Irving novel begins by detailing how the next person to be talked about has a great grandfather who landed at Plymouth despite the fact that the rest of the story takes place in the 1920s, and if I didn’t know it was Irving, I would’ve thought that opening was an Irving parody.

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Reposted by Jessi Grieser

William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026

[Exit Queen.]

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 23/08/2026

Also Oh My God after now having clicked on the effing video OF COURSE YES I RECOGNIZE THAT RHYTHM BUT DEAR GOD

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Jessi Grieser @jessgrieser.com · 23/08/2026

Not me clapping out that rhythm from the thumbnail while in public.

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Have everything decided before the first deposit lands, and you'll make the most out of that tiny bit the regents have deemed you worthy of. And if there's money left over? Add it straight to your fun spending. $50 added to a modest dining out budget feels decadent and makes it easier to save. /fin

Salary Paycheck Calculator – Calculate Net Income | ADP

The first 4 are the 4 I do, the 5th is one I'd add if I needed to. I love using ADP's paycheck calculator to get within a couple dollars (sometimes it's been cents) of my first takehome pay of the new fiscal year. www.adp.com/resources/to... 8/

adp.com

ADP’s paycheck calculator shows you how to calculate net income and salary for employees.

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5-Kids. I don't have them, but they *also* do their big changes in August, conveniently for us academics. Is daycare going up? Is one kid starting public school and you're getting the daycare raise? How will that change your financial year? This is the perfect time to look at that. 7/

4-Your healthcare spending. This is less so about a salary adjustment and more so about the fact that some sadistic jerk put open enrollment at midterms. You are not going to look at your healthcare spending in October. Do it now and decide if your plan still works for you or not. 6/

3-Savings. This is a great time to look at your monthly inflows & outflows. Even if you don't typically do this every month (most people! it's fine! I'm a nerd!), at annual reset time is a good time to look. Any savings you want to bump up? Do it now and you won't feel it. 5/

Tax Withholding Estimator - About you | Internal Revenue Service

2-Your W-4. By now, most of us have gotten our taxes for the prior year settled. Ideally, you want your money working for *you* throughout the year, not the government. So if you got a big refund, now's a good time to recalculate your withholding. apps.irs.gov/app/tax-with... 4/

apps.irs.gov

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1- Your retirement elections. It's easy, especially because education raises are SO SMALL, to ignore the need to bump up your retirement savings to match. Over time, though, this can leave you saving less than you meant to. So go into your HR platform and give your retirement the same raise. 3/

Note, I hope for most people, it's a raise, however tiny. But it also might be a new policy from work that takes it down. Or maybe a grant is ending. Either which way, it's the right time of year to look at things. But what to look at? /2

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