iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Got 7 of the top 10, and also got the top 2 right. Missed Luanda, Khartoum and Abidjan.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

It's the same in Canadian English. One other interesting change I've noticed in Canada recently (at least on the University grounds) is that they no longer use male + female icon figures to represent bathrooms in the signage in buildings, but use toilet icons instead.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

The kid has now come up with her own little phonetic transcription system for English. And yes, she likes to translate things into Kannada.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Evidently Australia's baseball team is doing better than their cricket team did in the Twenty20 World Cup.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

My daughter actually spoke with an English accent for awhile after watching lots of Peppa Pig when she was two years old.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I saw a mini-squadron of 4 helicopters hanging in the air over Blaine this morning. Is that something that ICE has been doing?

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

What's the nomenclatural problem? Do you think it should be the Divided States of America?

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Funny, because I keep thinking about that song "Us and Them" lately.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Hard to think of a worse way to flirt, really.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

To provide some context: Google Translate is her favorite website. I'm sure she's translated words from English into all of these languages at some point, but I'd never heard her say most of these language names before. Some of them were entirely new to me!

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

My 7-year-old daughter made up this alphabet song of languages. www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Y4...

youtube.com

The Language Alphabet Song

YouTube video by cognitivephonetician

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

In reality, they will only probably start caring if the economy gets really bad.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Cool, that is definitely my favorite version of the story, too.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Some folks here have already pointed out that German-ness is less concentrated in MN than in other places, but at some point you should do yourself the favor of visiting New Ulm and at least taking a picture of yourself next to the Herman the German monument. :-) www.newulm.com/things-to-do...

newulm.com

Hermann Monument - Visit New Ulm

This 102-foot monument towering over New Ulm depicts Hermann the Cheruscan, the ancient hero whose army liberated Germany from Roman rule in 9 A.D. As German immigrants came to the United States, the ...

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Hmm, renoviction is pretty nice. (The word, not the concept!)

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

We had a speaker yesterday from NZ who was talking about how he has to change the way he pronounces Auckland for speech recognition engines, and it made me realize that running through the pronunciations of Oakland-Auckland(NZ)-Auckland(Am) might be a good way to demonstrate the [o]-[ɔ]-[ɒ] triad.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Probably ought to be a "mirkwood" of spiders, instead.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

If convicted, though, what's the appropriate punishment? I say the guy has to eat 10 White Castle sliders.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Ha, ever since I discovered linguistics, both {c}s in "Celtic" have been [k]s for me. Except when I'm discussing Larry Bird.

Josef Fruehwald @jofrhwld.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Reposted by Steve Winters

I present, the lenition hypercube

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

My lab group will be participating in this interesting little conference up in Edmonton this weekend: matips.org/matips2025/d...

matips.org

start [Methods and Techniques in Phonetic Sciences]

Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Reposted by Steve Winters

Fan wearing a "Dump Here" jersey with 61 caught Cal's HR 🔥 Immediately changes into an identical 62 jersey

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

My sheet music says "Enlargen your world".

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

I've recently gotten to know someone who universally uses "there is" for both singular and plural nouns. So, rather than saying "there are books in the library" or perhaps "there's books in the library", they say "there is books in the library". Is this the start of a trend?

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Overheard in my lab today: "I think L*+H is my favorite pitch accent."

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

This is like when Lottie informed me that there's a pink lion on the Spanish flag.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Sounds like an implosive to me, but if it is an implosive, then it's a voiceless one, as you've transcribed it. Providing further evidence for the feature [+laryngeally weird].

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Fun fact: the road signs on U.S. 93 between Missoula and Kalispell are written in {Salish or Kootenai} and English.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I don't know, man. Who's to say that [i] - [ɪ] aren't a tense/lax pair?

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Looks like you're in the Consequences part.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

I think you're thinking of the southern pronunciation of "floor".

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I actually don't know that one. :-)

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Definitely heard [ˈkʰɑtɑɹ] on NPR in Nebraska today.

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Some nice examples of Canadians pronouncing the stressed vowel in "Nirvana" as [æ] here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9u5...

youtube.com

Bootleg of Nirvana Calgary show surfaces

YouTube video by CTV News

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Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

I have long thought that, if that is actually supposed to be sung to the tune of "The Star Spangled Banner", then that is easily the worst song ever written.

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Nice to see that they went with [twʌnti] rather than [twɛnti]!

Steve Winters @swinters.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Maybe people are attracted to really strange videos. :-) But now I'm thinking about whether people say "berthing" and "birthing" differently.