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Laurel MacKenzie

@laurelmack.bsky.social
135 followers 25 following 62 posts

Linguist & bird enthusiast. Associate Professor at NYU.

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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
"I did it!" 'I did it' "I did it Mama!" 'Mama did it' 1;10 #linguistbabyphotos
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Reposted by Laurel MacKenzie
Guy @guyt.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
I never thought it would happen to me! The Etymology Nerd did a video on my work with Laurel MacKenzie on how more and more people are saying "based off" instead of "based on"! Watch the video for a great summary, or look out for our forthcoming paper in English Language and Linguistics!
youtu.be
This post is based #linguistics #language #etymology #grammar
YouTube video by Etymology Nerd
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
I have to focus on the lighthearted moments in my six years studying with Bill to keep from feeling too sad. Here we are in 2009 at a ceremony at the Penn Museum where I received a teaching award. When I invited him: "I wouldn't miss it! I've already got it on my calendar." Classic Bill.
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 24/10/2024
Found a good deal on an #nwav52 hotel!
"With the offer you are saving $39,918.24"
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 09/10/2024
Sometimes I miss British English noun pileups and then I get an email with a subject line like this
Email subject line "FY26 Research Technology Needs Request Process Information Session"
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Reposted by Laurel MacKenzie
Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 19/09/2024
The NYT has an article on pirate speech, featuring actual linguist @laurelmack.bsky.social, the star of a fun NYU-produced video discussing a bunch of terms Unclear why they use the spelling "aargh" to represent the _arr_ interjection, though. www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/n...
nytimes.com
Aargh, It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 25/06/2024
Love seeing a counterexample to Labov 2012 (image 1) in today’s NYT (image 2)!
“In many areas of culture or technology, some older people will embrace and welcome the new. But in thousands of sociolinguistic interviews, no one has ever been heard to say, “I really like the way that young people talk today; it’s so much better than the way we talked when I was young.” Most of us adhere to what one may call the Golden Age Syndrome: the belief that language once existed in a state of perfection, and any change is a decline from that state, to be resisted.” (p. viii)“My son has always been generous with me, and I’ve found the slang of his generation to be so much better and more useful than any that I’ve ever used.”
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 27/03/2024
Very basic math q! See screenshot: we teach that the y-axis is at x=0, but in Fig. 4.2b, what I'd call "the y-axis" (the vertical line labeled "Response") is at x = -2. So like... what do we call that line at x = -2? Is the line at x=0 the true y-axis, and the one at x = -2 just a cosmetic one?
Screenshot from Winter's Statistics for Linguists, p. 71, Fig 4.2 and surrounding text
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 31/01/2024
Today he referred to the [tr] pronunciation as “the weird way” 💀
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 31/01/2024
#linguistics
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 26/01/2024
Doing a study of academics and Linguistics wasn't listed among the possible fields to choose from. Finally found it, as a subfield of Philosophy 😑
A screenshot of a form reading:
Current Academic Rank: Associate Professor
Field (best approximation): Philosophy
Subfield: Linguistics
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 20/01/2024
“I say it CHRAY, with a CH. Not TRAY. That would be funny.” -5;10. I have been waiting for this day!
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 06/01/2024
Who will fund me to do the corpus study of all the different ways @dasharez0ne.bsky.social spells “skeleton” in their alt text
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
If anyone at #lsa2024 today wants to try this proustian ideal of a ham sandwich with me, lmk. This place is around the corner from the conference hotel and I’ve been dying to go since this article came out 🥖 www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/d...
nytimes.com
The Proustian Ideal of a Ham Sandwich (Published 2022)
For French sandwich shops in New York, jambon beurre — ham on a buttered baguette — is one of the most difficult, yet satisfying feats.
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 03/01/2024
#linguistics
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 09/12/2023
🤨
A sign in a grocery store window reading “Exquisited”
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 17/11/2023
ChatGPT seems to think "rhoticity" can be parsed as "r-hot-icity" 🤣
A screenshot of text output from chatGPT reading: "To conduct a modern-day dialectological study on rhoticity, I would target diverse speaker populations across different regions. This could include using social media or online platforms to gather data from individuals representing various geographical areas. I might create an interactive online survey or a mobile app specifically designed to collect audio recordings of individuals reading a set of standardized sentences containing "r"-hot words."

"containing r-hot words" has been highlighted because wtf
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Reposted by Laurel MacKenzie
Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
We watched Nightmare Before Christmas recently, and now that the baby is mobile, he's reminding us of Jack Skellington in Christmasland. "What's this? What's this? They've got a little bin How neat! It's filled with tiny toys Can I eat?" etc.
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Laurel MacKenzie @laurelmack.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
We watched Nightmare Before Christmas recently, and now that the baby is mobile, he's reminding us of Jack Skellington in Christmasland. "What's this? What's this? They've got a little bin How neat! It's filled with tiny toys Can I eat?" etc.
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