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Nigel Caplan

@nigelc.bsky.social

1.1K followers 726 following 438 posts

Professor @ Univ of Delaware: ESL, education, linguistics. Focused on teacher-training for multilingual learners. Also SFL, ungrading, resisting AI. Newish books: ESSENTIAL ACTIONS and GENRE EXPLAINED. All views my own. www.nigelcaplan.com

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

My spam folder is unusually on point today.

Email senders: "AI for Developing / The Charlatan"

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Tell me you've never read the book without ...

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The (Delaware) News Journal prints a spelling error in a headline about ...

"Wlimington's spelling bee content registration opens"

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Every day is Yorkshire Day

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I think I've figured out why.

Two Bluesky posts: the first is from Effin' Birds and reads "why the fuck am I surprised." The second is from Linguistic Discovery with the headline "US ranks first in online swearing among English-speaking countries."

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

This from f*ing Google, which turned its dumb-as-bricks "AI" Gemini on by *default* for kids accounts, requiring me to log in and turn it OFF. Note that all responsibility is on the user and their parents. Google: oh no, we couldn't possibly. Irresponsible grifters and fraudsters. Turn it off.

Email from Google containing this text: Some helpful reminders
Gemini can make mistakes, so help your child think critically about Gemini responses.
• Remind your child that Gemini isn’t human. Even though it sometimes talks like one, it can’t think for itself or feel emotions
• Show your child how to double-check responses
• Let your child know not to enter sensitive or personal info in Gemini
• Our filters try to limit access to inappropriate content, but they’re not perfect.
Your child may encounter content you don’t want them to see
• Google Assistant Parental Controls will remain in Family Link and will continue to apply to Google Assistant devices in the home but will not apply to Gemini

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

SOA's template is weak. It grovels to tech corp$ by politely asking for compensation rather than the immediate destruction of illegally trained products. Disgusting. Here's my edit fwiw. Text in ALT.

I am writing to you as an author who is extremely concerned about your misuse of my creative work. It has come to my attention that you have used several books and articles I have written in the training of your generative AI models without permission from me, and in violation of my rights under copyright.

This letter is to put you on notice that you do not have the right to use my work to train your AI models. You must obtain express permission and provide reasonable licensing terms for authors’ works.

I DEMAND that you destroy the "AI" products that you have trained using illegally sourced data.

Dr Nigel A Caplan
Professor

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Bastards nicked my books to feed their world-burning bullshit generators. How's your day going?

Search results using the Atlantic's tool reveal two of my books were stolen and used to train Meta's AI without my consent.

Another screenshot showing academic articles that were probably used illegally as well. Nice.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

This is what working on federally funded education grants is like right now.

Screenshot from NBC website about the suspension of play during golf's The Players Championship. "3:30pm EDT update: The 3pm update is that there will be a 3:30pm update."

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

There's a survey after every short video. Every. One. Very much repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

Survey with 3 questions to rate 1-5 stars. Helpfulness of content / Length of content / Presentation of content. I've rated each one star.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

"This is an official website of the US government. Here's how you know >> Learn about NSF's implementation of recent executive orders" Well at the least the web designers got a chuckle of this horror show. I'll tell you how I know this is an official website of the US government ...

Masthead of the NSF website reads: This is an official website of the US government. Here's how you know. Learn about NSF's implementation of recent executive orders"

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Thanks, BestBuy, for writing my verb tense quiz for this week.

Screenshot of three consecutive emails from Best Buy reading: 1) Your package is ready for our delivery partner; 2) Your package has been delivered; 3) Your package is going to be delivered.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Whose bagels? Either that or some spectacular anaphoric pronoun reference in e #LinguisticLandscape of London

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

EdTech company here that really knows how to sell its s..software! Hard pass.

Dear Dr. [Name],
What if your student teachers could:

Receive AI-guided reflection prompts during practicum
Build evidence-based portfolios automatically
Get real-time feedback on teaching practices
Track their development across clinical experiences

One School of Education discovered their candidates were 3x more likely to identify specific areas for growth when using our AI-enhanced reflection tool during student teaching.
As [Role] at [University's] School of Education, you might be interested in how this tool:

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