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Stephen Chrisomalis

@schrisomalis.bsky.social
2.9K followers 2.4K following 2.4K posts

Linguistic anthropologist, Wayne State University. Numbers, cognition, writing and literacy, mathematics. Left, 🇨🇦, he/him. glossographia.com phrontistery.info

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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 20m
Interested in a graduate degree in a collegial, holistic, community-engaged anthropology department, or know someone who is? Wayne State is holding its annual Open House on Zoom on 10/19, 4:30pm EDT. See the flyer below, or register at tinyurl.com/3xdmcuwt. DM me with any questions. Share widely!
Wayne State University Dept of Anthroplogy Graduate Open House, Monday October 19, 2026, 4:30-6:00pm (Eastern), Virtual on Zoom; Deadline to apply for Fall 2027: January 15.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 4h
Nobody believes that "writing IS thinking". People do (correctly) believe that writing is a critical *form* of thinking, one that is cognitively useful, aesthetically powerful, and that cannot simply be substituted or abandoned without serious consequence.
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U of T Centre for Medieval Studies @uoftcms.bsky.social · 10h
Congratulations to Shannon McSheffrey and Walid A. Saleh, who have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. www.medieval.utoronto.ca/news/shannon...
Walid Saleh, Shannon McSheffrey
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm not saying that what I do is of no practical use (I promise!). But there is something to be said for spending an evening reading 100-year-old advertisements from the Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Won't anyone out there please think about the poor folks of Anguilla?
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Apparently there is no law in Canada that requires electoral districts to be geographically contiguous. There is a district that has inhabited parts you can only access by travelling through other ridings and then back in. Anyone care to puzzle out which one? (I'll answer yes/no questions).
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is exceptionally well deserved. Helen is incredibly missed across such a wide network of folks across multiple disciplines.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Anyone have any ideas of articles or books that a really bright, really interested, kid (roughly 12-14 yo) might read in linguistics, to help get them interested in the field? Probably stuff that is more cognitive / formal than socio? I have ideas (of course) but suggestions would be welcome!
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Good news! I woke up this morning and realized that a serious admin issue that would require my chair's immediate intervention was solely a product of my dream. Bad news! I woke up to an email that a different, more serious admin issue has arisen, and is very real.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I have been working on the most personally appealing new course idea I've had in years, an interdisciplinary cognitive/historical seminar aimed at grad students across disciplines, including humanities and sciences, called "Human Minds and Cultures". Now if only bureaucracy doesn't get in its way.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This episode of @manymindspod.bsky.social featuring @damianblasi.bsky.social is IMO the best I've listened to, and I'm saying that despite having been a previous guest on the podcast! I'll admit to some bias as a fellow-traveller in this field, but still, it's absolutely a banger!
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
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Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · 23/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/s...
nytimes.com
Mathematics Isn’t Just a Game to Let A.I. Solve. History Shows Why. (Gift Article)
In our field of applied mathematics, the long, human process of trial and error — not just the solutions themselves — is often what has led to progress.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I mean this question earnestly; I don't know the answer. Do mathematicians who use LLMs to generate new proofs/results have a different view of the aesthetics of mathematical work, than those who don't? Are we just reliving four-colour theorem angst, on steroids?
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
As an official professor of numbers, I can only marvel at this presentation by @paulrobalino.bsky.social on the latest @smartypants.dropout.tv and wonder what parts of it I can scam ... err ... repurpose for scholarly inquiry.
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Standplaats Kraków could really use some cash! @standplaatskrk.pl · 14/09/2026
Discord:
evil f skeleton:
"bro so like
I was in my college class and they don't let you use ai right
and so like I started using chatgpt in my head analyzing the article and shit it was like
I was using chatgpt in my head
u feel me?"

harkits:
"motherfucker thats called thinking"
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Steven (with a PH) @sjksalisbury.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise.
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Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I don’t usually meddle on the writing side of Jeopardy!, but tonight I called in a favor for our Bluesky viewers.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Mark Carney should wake up every morning and thank the powers that be that Donald Trump is an idiot. 70% approval rating. 70. What a world.
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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 18/09/2026
INBOX: Science retracted a news article this week after editors found that the author (likely an AI agent) impersonated the identity of an established science journalist, both with editors and sources in the story. Furthermore, two of the quotes provided were plagiarized: (h/t @wudan.bsky.social)
science.org
Your heartbeat quietly shapes how your brain processes information
Frequently ignored bodily rhythms may be skewing neuroscience experiments
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
News!! 🎉🎉🎉 We've officially re-launched our newsletter! Our first post is a "starter pack"—a brief orientation for newcomers to the show, with suggested episodes on different themes. Feel free to make alternate suggestions in the comments! manymindspodcast.substack.com/p/many-minds...
manymindspodcast.substack.com
Many Minds podcast: A starter pack
A guide for new listeners
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I find it deeply ironic that I, who have a fairly open view about what makes human language distinct from non-human communication, am confronted every year with students who are absolutely convinced that if you don't grant (some?) animals language, you're some kind of weird bigot.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I imagine I'm in agreement with most Canadians that I don't actually want Canada to join the EU. But, from a purely selfish perspective, anything that might make me eligible more widely for ERC / EU funding would be welcome, given that basically the US has nothing for me at all anymore.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Students, give me some credit! You're saying that within 2 hours of my opening the week's module on Canvas, you read an entire peer-reviewed article (for NEXT week) and asked a thoughtful / analytical question about it, without using AI... come on. At least wait a few days for plausible deniability.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I don't really understand how adding white text to an assignment prompt is supposed to catch cheating students. Doesn't it just get copied as black text when you copy/paste it into the LLM? Or is the assumption that students don't even read the prompt, and just throw the assignment into the LLM?
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Juan L Rodriguez @jlrodriguez10.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
But also, want to know how f@%# up AI is? Study linguistic anthropology.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Offered without further justification: Coyote vs. Acme is an exceptionally trenchant defense of the humanities without ever using the term.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Do you have / are you a student looking for broad interdisciplinary graduate training? I am actively recruiting this year - definitely not just folks who work in numerals! Let me know, or just send your student my direction. Wayne State has a great ecosystem of folks across disciplines and topics.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Here's a list of in-class students' questions on index cards in week 1 of my undergrad ling-anth course. Most have no ling background at all (with obvious exceptions). While it's easy to get down on 'kids these days', many are surprisingly insightful and full of things I have yet to teach them.
glossographia.com
What do (my) undergrads want to know?
As an in-class exercise today, I had the students write down one or more questions on index cards and hand them in. Actually I asked them to each write one question, but most of them were energized…
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NBC4 Washington @nbcwashington.com · 09/09/2026
Charlie Kirk’s nonprofit Turning Point USA’s Professor Watchlist, which claims it uncovers the most radical left wing professors from universities that are known to suppress the conservative voices and advance the progressive agenda," has been taken down.
nbcwashington.com
Turning Point USA's Professor Watchlist is down. Instructors describe its impact
This week marks one year since the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. While the nonprofit he created, Turning Point USA, is still working to engage young conservative voters ahead of the m...
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M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This summer I led a series of conversations in my lab about "AI" and our research. Some colleagues have shared "AI policies" for their labs and we discussed whether this would make sense for us. We decided it did not, and came up with a different approach. Please feel free to share & adapt!
zenodo.org
Crockett Lab Statement on AI and Scientific Research
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
And now I have a 300+ page working document, of which 290+ pages are AI-generated responses to 30+ prompts.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I'm strongly considering a paper/presentation whose working title is "Am I the most important cognitive anthropologist in North America?". (The answer is "no", by the way!) It's a deep dive using LLM "data" across a set of prompts based on expert knowledge of my subfield. Laughable errors abound.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 04/09/2026
Update: the dialect map quiz thing going around is a cheap knockoff of the good one, which is here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk (Published 2024)
What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer all the questions below to see your personal dialect map.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My Android Auto updated this morning with its new @mapquest.com integration. Good news for this fellow born on the shores of Lake Ontario! 🇨🇦
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Here's a list of in-class students' questions on index cards in week 1 of my undergrad ling-anth course. Most have no ling background at all (with obvious exceptions). While it's easy to get down on 'kids these days', many are surprisingly insightful and full of things I have yet to teach them.
glossographia.com
What do (my) undergrads want to know?
As an in-class exercise today, I had the students write down one or more questions on index cards and hand them in. Actually I asked them to each write one question, but most of them were energized…
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Just so you understand how Canadians are feeling right now: twice over the last week, at bars near Wayne State, I ordered decidedly mid-tier Canadian corporate beer instead of delicious non-corporate Michigan microbrews. Almost nothing could have gotten me to drink Labatt Blue, but here we are.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 04/08/2026
Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia It's been a year & people tell me they've changed their mind, feel safer now to sign, etc. So I'm sharing it again for them. We're almost at 2k & anybody from anywhere can add their names. openletter.earth/open-letter-...
We call upon you to:

• Resist the introduction of AI in our own software systems, from Microsoft to OpenAI to Apple. It is not in our interests to let our processes be corrupted and give away our data to be used to train models that are not only useless to us, but also harmful.

• Ban AI use in the classroom for student assignments, in the same way we ban essay mills and other forms of plagiarism. Students must be protected from de-skilling and allowed space and time to perform their assignments themselves.• Cease normalising the AI hype and the lies which are prevalent in the technology industry's framing of these technologies. The technologies do not have the advertised capacities and their adoption puts students and academics at risk of violating ethical, legal, scholarly, and scientific standards of reliability, sustainability, and safety.

• Fortify our academic freedom as university staff to enforce these principles and standards in our classrooms and our research as well as on the computer systems we are obliged to use as part of our work. We as academics have the right to our own spaces.

• Sustain critical thinking on AI and promote critical engagement with technology on a firm academic footing. Scholarly discussion must be free from the conflicts of interest caused by industry funding, and reasoned resistance must always be an option.
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Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
New episode!! 🎙️🎉 A conversation with @damianblasi.bsky.social about linguistic diversity and what it can tell us. Linguistic diversity is a precious part of our species' heritage. It also offers a wellspring of clues about history, culture, and the human mind. Listen: disi.org/the-natural-...
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I guess I should feel honoured to have been the target of one of these scams today. (Thanks to @philiplaughlin.bsky.social along with my own deep skepticism about pay-to-play, I knew to be wary). Sigh ... www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/b...
nytimes.com
Hungry for Affirmation, Vulnerable to Scams: As a Writer, I Know the Feeling
From George Saunders to the National Book Foundation, the literary world has been besieged by fake requests. Just like me.
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The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 24/08/2026
Report: Trump admin demanded Canada execute Bonhomme
thebeaverton.com
Report: Trump admin demanded Canada execute Bonhomme
OTTAWA - Reports from the Canada-U.S. trade talks indicates that the Trump Administration made a last-minute demand for the public execution of beloved Québécois celebrity Bonhomme Carnaval.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I'm tired of my American friends telling me that I just have to wait for them to get their shit together in 2028. Elbows up, and all that. 🇨🇦
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Kevin Hearne @kevinhearne.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Not sure American folks understand what the Tromp admin did, so bear with me here: If any country came to the U.S. & said you can’t make trade deals without our approval and also you can’t protect English as a language anymore, we think it’s inconvenient, how would you respond? Would ANGER be fair?
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Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Proust on AI, 1918. “He imagines a sort of composite of all the good books that he has read, whereas a good book is something special, something unforeseeable…”
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Mary Dudziak @marydudziak.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Beginning my research seminar, as always, with Lynn Hunt's essay How Writing Leads to Thinking (and Not the Other Way Around). Should be mandatory reading in light of the impact of AI. www.historians.org/perspectives...
Writing is stressful. Sitting in my computer chair my neck and shoulder muscles almost immediately tense up as I dig around in my brain for the best phrase or even any coherent string of words, whether I am writing an essay like this one, a book chapter, a letter of recommendation, or an email message to a friend. Writing is time-consuming. It’s a great way to pass the time on a long airplane flight because you lose track of the passage of time altogether. It’s even better, from that point of view exclusively, than watching an episode of Mad Men on your laptop. Writing means many different things to me but one thing it is not: writing is not the transcription of thoughts already consciously present in my mind. Writing is a magical and mysterious process that makes it possible to think differently.
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I am actively recruiting MA and PhD students in linguistic, historical, and cognitive anthropology at Wayne State for Fall 2027. No GRE; multi-year funding for all PhD students. Application deadline 01/15. Share widely, or contact me for more info. clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/dz6179
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Crow @abbyjane.cloverdalelane.com · 14/08/2026
I think about this a lot.
Tim Henke
@TimHenke9
eat shit, René Magritte
Translate Tweet
Mauv @ThatsMauvelous • 1d the machine refused to recognize my humanity until i professed to believe that a sign painted to look like a traffic light is indeed a traffic light.
Show this thread
Select all squares with traffic lights
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Stephen Chrisomalis @schrisomalis.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Do I have anyone on here who can help with a tricky issue in early modern (late 16th century) Portuguese lexicography / etymology?
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...
carlsonlab.bio
The only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson Lab
Over the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our la...
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
not to be confused with quesadilla
Ķ
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Quesadilla.
Ķ (k-cedilla) is the 17th letter of the Latvian alphabet.
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