iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Noel Healy @drnoelhealy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The assault on US universities didn't start in 2025. Our new paper traces the decades of corporate capture that made it possible, and why climate research is a primary target. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Deborah Rose @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Feel like I’m spamming you today soz! But I have never forgotten the delight upon seeing these two pages in the middle of her short story Real Estate where the protagonist can’t stop laughing at her husband's infidelities. "There had been a parade of flings – in the end, they'd made her laugh. Ha!”

Pages from a book. On either side of the blank space of the middle spine is printed the word Ha! Over and over again. Ha! ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! And on and on. Ha!

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Jane Thurber @thurberteam.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The best use of social media is to get recommendations from people you trust.

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Charlie Connelly @charlieconnelly.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

In 1963 my mum sent off for this flooring sample. It’s now entering its 64th year as a teapot stand.

A small square of very old matting on a pink check tablecloth.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Or as C.S. Lewis put it, "Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." That troubling "without end" takes on dire new implications under billionaire-funded longtermism, as this thread outlines

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Deborah Rose @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

We’re all complicit.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I've liked everything I've read by Lorrie Moore (two story collections, two novels), but this morbidly beautiful oddity might be my favourite so far

Lorrie Moore's novel I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home. Faber & Faber paperback. The cover has a large illustration of an orange in front of the moon, overlapping it. They're the same size. The book title is overlaid on the moon at the top, the author's name and cover quotes on the orange below it. A few green leaves and stems border both globes. The quotes read: "Startling, painful, funny" (Elle); "The most irresistible contemporary American writers (New York Times); "A triumph of tone and, ultimately, of the imagination" (The Guardian). Images by Novapix / The Stapleton Collection / Circa/Glasshouse / Bridgeman Images.

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Caitlin Cooper @caitlinmaycooper.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Best plural forms ranked: 1) internal (tours de force, culs-de-sac) 2) ending in -i (magi) 3) is to es (oases) 4) suppletive (people) 5) vowel changes (geese) 6) f to ves (thieves) 7) adding en (oxen) 8) no change (moose) 9) adding es, ies (boxes, babies) 10) adding s

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"What leads an artist dedicated to an ideal of artistic autonomy to repudiate that ideal, committing themselves to solidarity with the perpetrators of genocide?" Michael G. Cronin on John Banville and the politics of literature under neoliberalism: www.anclogan.ie/art-for-the-...

anclogan.ie

Art for the Market's Sake: John Banville's False Autonomy

"It's nice to see a work of art win", John Banville said on winning the Booker Prize. Michael G Cronin traces a line from that remark to the neoliberal creative economy, and from there to Banville's d...

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

At rehearsals for Endgame in London in 1964, Jack MacGowran was wondering how best to deliver the line, "If I knew the combination of the safe, I'd kill you." He asked Beckett for advice, and Beckett said: "Just think that if you knew the combination of the safe, you would kill him."

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Paul Duane 🥔 @paulduane.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Good day for the story Herzog told when I saw him speak in Dublin this year. He was asked about directing actors & said he doesn't like to give much direction. The example he gave was when Nicolas Cage asked him, "Werner, what makes the lieutenant bad?" He answered, "It is the bliss of evil."

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Paul Adasiak @amicusthespis.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I did a few papers on swearing for my undergraduate Linguistics degree, and I fucking LOVE THIS SHIT.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A rare contemporary(ish) sighting of the old oath "God's blood", from Norman Mailer of all people

"The Fight" by Norman Mailer, Penguin Classics paperback edition. The cover has a large, black and white, head-and-shoulders photo of Muhammad Ali in his training camp in Zaire in 1974. By Abbas/Magnum Photos.

"God's blood, one didn't want to miss obtaining the ticket now."

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Slang "balls" connotation is unfortunate. But defending the grammar: —This "less" has been in continuous use in good literature for centuries —"More" covers count & non-count nouns in the other direction; no one minds or notices —The rule against "less" with countables is an arbitrary modern dogma 🤷

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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Heard in a podcast: Asking “what is the hardest language to learn?” is like asking “what is the farthest town?”

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Reading Nora Ephron. Writing about reading Nora Ephron writing about reading

Nora Ephron's book "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman", Doubleday paperback edition introduced by Dolly Alderton. It's bright yellow with pink text, the title styled like handwriting. Below the title is an image of a white tub of cosmetic cream, which contains the subtitle.

"Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss."

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

For a second I thought this was a detail from Louis le Brocquy's drawing Army Massing, in the Táin Bó Cúailnge

Wide illustration, black on white, of hundreds of tiny figures: people, and people on horses, as seen from an elevated distance. The patterns of dark on light they create gives the image an abstract quality.

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Chloe N. Clark @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Tell me about the video store of your past please

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Same, except college rather than high school. I often think about graffiti I saw under a bridge outside Prague that said: STOP CRYING AND MAKE A MIXTAPE

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Lynne Murphy @lynneguist.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Is 'oblong' the new 'frown'? Does it sneakily have different meanings in US and UK? New blog post! with thanks to @benzimmer.bsky.social and @ruthwarewriter.bsky.social separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2026/09/oblo...

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

oblong (and a bit about ovals)

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

For a second I thought this was a detail from Louis le Brocquy's drawing Army Massing, in the Táin Bó Cúailnge

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A lovely detail on Irish place names in @ellamcsweeney.bsky.social's latest, about how infrastructure is failing flood management in Ireland: www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2...

Clonmany comes from the Irish word cluain: a meadow or pasture that naturally floods, the kind of ground Ireland’s old landscape knew how to use. It is on maps of Ireland; nearly every Clon, Clone and Cloon carries the same word. We drained the water from the land, but never from the names.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A fascinating, dispiriting look at the art/business of persuasion in book publishing

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Machines can produce synthetic language, but there is no understanding there: it’s just a prediction engine, not even rising to the level of bullshit. #AI

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Deborah Rose @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Some of the books are so decrepit they look dry & woody, as though they’re slowly turning back into trees

Detail of the spine of a very old book in poor condition, torn & ragged edges revealing a glimpse of the pages under the cover

Detail of the spines of four very old large books in poor condition, torn & ragged edges revealing a glimpse of the pages under the cover - in this case the spine covers are completely missing

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We've added an AI policy to the @stronglang.bsky.social blog: stronglang.wordpress.com/ai-policy/

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Brían Hanrahan @hanrahanistan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I was trying to get clear on the difference between a hermit and an anchorite & came across this wonderful antiquarian study Rotha Mary Clay, "The Hermits and Anchorites of England" (1914) archive.org/details/herm... (Internet Archive you beauty 🤍🩵🤍😍)

TOC:

INTRODUCTION •
I. ISLAND AND FEN RECLUSES
II. FOREST AND HILLSIDE HERMITS
III. CAVE DWELLERS
IV. LIGHT-KEEPERS ON THE SEA COAST
V. HIGHWAY AND BRIDGE HERMITS •
VI. TOWN HERMITS ..
VII. ANCHORITES IN CHURCH AND CLOISTER.
VIII. ORDER AND RULE • •
IX. CONCERNING THE BODY •
X. TRIAL AND TEMPTATION.
XI. HUMAN INTERCOURSE .
XII. PROPHETS AND COUNSELLORS AII. LITERARY RECLUSES :
XIV. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
PAGE
XV
I
3
49
5
66
73
8
5
IOI
128
146
I67
183

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Tramp Press @tramppress.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

It's Women in Translation month! A Ghost in the Throat is, among other things, about a woman translating an epic Irish poem. I don't think it's a spoiler to say Doireann's own translation of Caoineadh Airt Ú Laoghaire is printed at the end. It's stunning work: tramppress.com/product/a-gh...

tramppress.com

A Ghost in the Throat (paperback edition)

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

"He was perhaps less a political radical than a bohemian individualist, resentful of authority and restive with institutional restraints." Terry Eagleton on the politics of James Joyce: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... #SpéirGhorm

lrb.co.uk

Terry Eagleton · Starveling Rabblement: Joyce’s Politics

Joyce stands out among the great modernist writers for his belief in tolerance, equality, democracy, progress and the...

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Deborah Rose @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

26 years later a friend will occasionally email or text with a single word: Toosh. A reminder of the day I said it to him and quickly learned that’s not how you pronounce the word “Touché”

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Lane Greene @lanegreene.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

And some misles have become standard…like “atone” meant to be “at-one”, in harmony with someone.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I once read the word "riverbed" as "ri-verbed"

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Wendy Lyon @wendylyon.eurosky.social · 26/08/2026

Loving this new Four Courts art #speirghorm

Painted electrical boxes outside the Four Courts depicting two cats as barristers

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

If you're into words and language change, @fritinancy.bsky.social's links are always a fun selection with some surprises

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I've just finished Macdonald's The Goodbye Look, which contains this gem: "As I was on my way back to the bed the floor tilted up and smacked me on the right side of the face." If you enjoy spending time with Philip Marlowe, you might want to meet Lew Archer sometime.

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 24/08/2026

Hey bluesky, I'm looking for some brainstorming help! So, mine and @superlinguo.bsky.social's 10th anniversary of making @lingthusiasm.com is coming up in November, and I'm trying to figure out some fun things to do for it, especially things that could get more people enthusiastic about linguistics

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

A recent podcast discovery that has brought me much joy and interest is Fenster's Funky Sevens Recommended especially if your taste in music runs broad or you're curious about how musical genres emerge and evolve. Thanks for doing this, @fensterdj.bsky.social fenstersfunkysevens.podbean.com

fenstersfunkysevens.podbean.com

Fenster’s Funky Sevens | fensterdj

A podcast based on the 7” single in my record collection, each episode I choose seven 7”s and arrange them into a genre or theme, then I talk about the history of the songs and musicians

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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 08/08/2026

Arguing that LLMs are anything more than a load of numbers going into a complicated mathematical function and spitting some more numbers out. Yes they simulate. But they simulate *language*. They do not simulate the cognitive processes underlying communication.

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Nice short analysis of some Gen Z grammar and expressions, like "It's giving" and spotlight "not" ("Not me using youth slang again") ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/ge...

ygdp.yale.edu

Gen Z constructions: an overview | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America

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Stan Carey @stancarey.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Odyssey fans looking for a counterpoint to its dodgy politics might enjoy Margaret Atwood's retelling, The Penelopiad

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