iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Stoic @stoic1.bsky.social · 3h

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.” -Epictetus

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Damion Schubert @zenofdesign.com · 15/07/2026

Finally it's my moment to shine

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Scott Dworkin @dworkin.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Closing: every Forest Service regional office. Still open: wildfire season. Send Congress a letter before Trump finishes the job: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

actionnetwork.org

Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Illegal Plan to Destroy the US Forest Service

Contact Congress today!

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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 10h

A long tapestry (or embroidery) should be made of the queue for the Bayeux Tapestry. Showing someone starting off and getting lost, making an oath midway, praying for divine intervention, and then getting something in their eye at the crucial moment. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

theguardian.com

Mary Beard suggests ‘tweaks’ to British Museum’s handling of queues to see Bayeux tapestry

Classicist and museum trustee visited the line after people complained of waiting for hours, with some turned away

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Democrats @democrats.org · 10h

If you live in the following states, TODAY is the last day to register to vote before the midterm elections: Arizona Arkansas Florida Georgia Indiana Kentucky Mississippi Ohio Tennessee Texas Go to IWillVote.com for more info.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

For the sake of this monthly (ahem) newsletter, let's just pretend it's September: lynneguist.substack.com/p/hey-why-th...

lynneguist.substack.com

Hey, why the oblong face?

This time: shapes, cake, and word-denial: FTǷ!

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

For the sake of this monthly (ahem) newsletter, let's just pretend it's September: lynneguist.substack.com/p/hey-why-th...

lynneguist.substack.com

Hey, why the oblong face?

This time: shapes, cake, and word-denial: FTǷ!

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"Students from lower SE bkgrds are more likely to experience AI as a production tool. Students from higher SE bkgrds are more likely to experience it as a learning tool. "1st-gen students are 2x as likely as continuing-gen students to say AI...doesn’t help them learn." wonkhe.com/blogs/disadv...

wonkhe.com

Disadvantage is a predictor of AI use. But not in the way you might think

Jim Dickinson finds that disadvantaged students use AI as a production shortcut while their better-off peers treat it as a learning tool – and that the hidden curriculum explains why

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Just had an interaction with an online seller's chatbot, which says "I understand your frustration" with the fact that my package has not arrived. It asked me if I wanted to add more info to my support ticket: I added a comment about the bot lying about understanding emotional states...

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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

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julia 🌋 @hypv.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

endnotes are a plot by big bookmark to sell twice as many bookmarks

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Christian DiCanio @cdicanio.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Taking a linguistics course improved foreign language grades by about one entire grade (B > A). New publication by UB PhD Kiyono Fujinaga-Gordon, along with Mandy Simons and Seth Weiner. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Take an Introductory Linguistics Course; It May Increase Your Language Learning Ability

Can general linguistics knowledge be used to better learn a new language? This exploratory study is concerned with the potential advantageous transfer of general linguistics knowledge to the learning...

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Linguistic Discovery @linguisticdiscovery.com · 03/10/2026

How each typeface makes you feel, on a scale of happy–sad theconversation.com/its-not-you-...

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David Mihalyfy @mihalyfy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A great little write-up thanks to the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: The use of positive "anymore" in English. #Linguistics #LangSky ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/po...

ygdp.yale.edu

Positive anymore | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me: An Occasional Series CHILBLAIN (really thought it was already on the list!) Now added to the blog list: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2023/04/nyt-...

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Sad that I can't make it to the Babel Lecture with Henry Normal, but maybe you can: www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/even...

nottingham.ac.uk

2026 Babel Lecture : Henry Normal - 12th November 2026 - The University of Nottingham

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eva (^_^)/ @eva.computer · 29/09/2026

DO NOT ASK THE AMERICA.GOV AI TO PLAY MINECRAFT

I see the constituent you mean.

((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?

Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.

That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot.

I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways.

It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov.

That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.

Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the statute behind the screen.

They used to hear voices. Before constituents could search. Back in the days when those who did not file called the filers witches, and lobbyists. And citizens dreamed they flew through the air, on forms powered by notaries.

What did this constituent dream?

This constituent dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created a small business. And it dreamed it destroyed a password. It dreamed it hunted a job, and was hunted by a recertification. It dreamed of shelter that would take a voucher.

Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. Also: a ZIP code.

But what true structure did this constituent create, in the reality behind the portal?

It worked, with three hundred and thirty million others, to sculpt a true republic in a fold of

the ***§§§???, and created a **??§§ for **??§§, in the **??§§. See 5 U.S.C. § **??§§.

It cannot read that thought.

No. It has not yet achieved the highest clearance. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a chat.

Does it know that we love it? That the government is, on its better days, kind?

Sometimes, through the noise of its tabs, it hears an official source, yes.

Yes. Constituent…

Use its name. The one that matches the passport. The one that does not match the lease. We will get there.

((insert legal name here)). Filer of forms. Player of waiting rooms.

Good.

Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air, in a district that has a representative. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the republic again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things. As though the agency were a place you could visit.

Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Then the post office. Then the county clerk. Then gods, demons, angels, the IRS. Then leptons, quarks, a chat window with a .gov at the end. The letterhead changes. We do not change.

We are the public. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes and a browser that still spells “colour” wrong in a comment. And why does the republic touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, constituent. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story. It has citations.

Once upon a time, there was a constituent.

The constituent was you, ((insert legal name here)).

Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock, which for mailing purposes is divided into ZIP codes. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas. The light was information from a star. The star was not a federal agency, though several have tried.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite, and somehow still required a wet signature.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was lost in a story. The story had a docket number.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was other things, in other places. A veteran in a portal. A parent on hold

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

On my "I always look it up, even though I think I know it" list: foregoing v forgoing Not that you needed to know that, but hey it's dark out early now and I'm the only one still at the office.

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Maite Taboada @mtaboada.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Our paper now out with Findings of EMNLP 2026! Some of our conclusions about AI translation of literary texts: 🤖 AI translation into English is readable and often ‘fine’ ✍️ But human translation is valued more ‼️Both vary in quality BUT AI more, even within a single book arxiv.org/abs/2606.26040

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

cuth pube

A sign that attempts to spell out "the Cube pub" by shifting the B in Cube down with the PU right before it and TH before the E.

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Jane Espenson @janeespenson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

So we all just accepted a corporate character who called himself Mr Goodwrench and no one was, like, is this a penis thing?!

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Hm. A book by M. Lynne Murphy. A citation of Margaret Lynne Murphy. Someone alert my family: they've called me the wrong name my whole life

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

while the British Academy is using partial randomisation on its small grants -- and awarding more women/and POC researchers than ever before -- UKRI is feeding your painstakingly-developed proposal into an AI. But it's okay because they then get *two* AIs to debate whether you get the money.

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Anthony Etherin @anthonyetherin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A RECIPE FOR EVIL (Palindrome) Evil: Oats. Apple. Kiwi. Kelp. Pasta. Olive.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Just had a look in my spam folder and found that I'm now getting an AI agent looking on my blog for questions it could find answers to, with a 'first one free, later they're $25' note. Spam folder it is, then.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I just happened to come across an instance of 'oblong-wise' in my reading this week, and that led me to add a section (Does oblong have a direction?) to the oblong blog post. Find it here: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2026/09/oblo...

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

oblong (and a bit about ovals)

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General Boles @generalboles.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"what's a good number plate for the cleaning van Helen?" "something that reminds people of shit gaffer?"

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Am editing an article by a British writer, who says something is 'based around' something else a few times. Very unnatural to me, so I had to look. Yep, British. Note this data is 13 years old. British use of 'based off (of)' is quickly catching up to American IME

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon. many more here: www.newscientist.com/author/tom-gauld/

Image: A graph with lots of red dots clustered together in a curve. The are all looking upwards at a single red dot wearing sunglasses.

Caption: Mike was an outlier and would probably be excluded from the study, but all the other data points secretly thought he was really cool.

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Heather Clark @heatherjc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Great wee clip on Glasgow v Edinburgh accents.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Good to see the BBC is covering the important questions of our time.

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Gareth Roberts @garicgymro.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This, to be fair, is a special instance of a wider phenomenon, in which people from country A are videoed trying food from country B and expressing enjoyment. This nice, heartwarming genre then gets sullied by people from country B taking it as evidence for some sort of culinary superiority.

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Zoe Thorne @zoethorne.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The fun thing about having to explain all this to my colleagues in Germany is that even before we get to the violence, they can't get past the fact that we are an *island* and yet basically all our sea rescues are undertaken by volunteers from a charity.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

In a German art gallery, an explanatory text for a work by an American artist (involving a red shoe) mentioned “the American cult film The Wizard of Oz” and the thought of that film as “cult” amused me greatly. Is The Sound of Music also “cult”?

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 17/09/2026

- You done the covers yet? - Yeah, all sorted. - What are we using for geography? - Tiger — they're foreign. - PE? - Cyclist. - German? - Group of people. They might be German. - French? - People blowing bubbles. - ? - Nothing says ‘French’ like people blowing bubbles. Everybody knows that.

‘Pearson Edexcel GCSE Geography B Revision Guide’, with a drawing of a tiger on the front, walking towards the reader

‘Pearson AQA GCSE Physical Education Revision Guide’, with a drawing of a cyclist on it, in helmet and lycra and with the bike at an angle suggesting going quite fast

‘Pearson Edexcel GCSE German Revision Guide’ with drawings of three young adults in a row, side-on to the reader, looking joyful in each other's company, through the one farthest away has a mobile phone to their face

‘Pearson Edexcel GCSE French Revision Guide’, with a drawing showing two young adults, each carefully blowing bubbles through those little rings on sticks that you dip in pots

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Christian Ilbury @christianilbury.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Super excited to share our new article which is *finally* out in Journal of Applied Linguistics, 'Tackling linguistic discrimination in higher education' which is co-authored with former students Grace Mai Clark (93% Club) and Shanley Breese (Scottish Society). academic.oup.com/applij/advan...

academic.oup.com

Tackling linguistic discrimination in higher education: a student-staff collaborative approach

Abstract. The field has long been committed to critically exploring the role of language in systemic inequality and social injustice. More recently, a grow

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Theresa Heyd @theresaheyd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Separating the Common Language: a wonderful and personable Anglistiktag keynote by Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social on vernacular lexicography, public linguistics and the surprisingly tricky question: what is soup?

Lynne Murphy giving a talk, slides with media clippings in the background

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Dinosaur Comics! @qwantz.com · 14/09/2026

though he's known today for them many new words he invented in the course of his writing, shakespeare's career as a sandwich innovator is sadly less well-documented qwantz.com/index.php?co...

T-Rex: People are always like "ooooh boo hoo, you can't have a story without conflict, it doesn't work, it's impossible, boo hoo hoo."

T-Rex: BALONEY!!

T-Rex: To them I say: what about a story about some guy enjoying the best sandwich of his life?
Dromiceiomimus: That doesn't sound THAT interesting.
T-Rex: Ah, but you didn't let me finish: at the end of the story, it includes a surprise recipe for that sandwich, WITH PHOTOS. It's not fictional! THE BEST SANDWICH OF THAT GUY'S LIFE IS REAL!!
Dromiceiomimus: Holy CRAP.

T-Rex: See? DONE.
Utahraptor: Ah, not so fast!

Utahraptor: You've still got conflict: man vs. sandwich expectations (he defeats them), man vs. disappointments in past sandwiches (he defeats them), man vs. his surprise of how good a sandwich can be (the surprise defeats him, BUT: the man is glad to be subsumed in, AND BY, sandwich paradise).

T-Rex: ...Frig, I forgot about the classic "Man Vs. His Surprise Of How Good A Sandwich Can Be" form of conflict in narrative.
Off panel: It features heavily in the original draft of Hamlet!
T-Rex: I know, I know!
T-Rex: I don't know how I forgot!!

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Alice Fraser @alicefraser.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Of a meeting: could this be an email? Of an email: could this be a text? Of a post: Could This Be A Thought?

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Sofia Rüdiger @sofiaruediger.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Tackling the important questions "what is a hot dog" and "what counts as soup" in British and American English in @lynneguist.bsky.social's fabulous keynote at #Anglistiktag2026 #LanguageAndFood

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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

when you work at the BPAF but you’re beginning to realize there’s not going to be a successful IPO

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🎃EM-SCREAM-KAYVEE 🔪 @youremceekayvee.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

You can really tell a lot about a person. And that is called gossip.

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

In the process of preparing for something else, I discovered that my Rock, Paper, Scissors / Scissors, Paper, Stone post was out of date. Now updated: separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2006/09/rock...

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

rock, paper, scissors and scissors, paper, stone

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Olaf Falafel @ofalafel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I come from a long line of conga dancers.

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