@ergative@wandering.shop
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

ergative

@ergative@wandering.shop

SFF booknerd; calligrapher; Islamic geometric art doer; figure skating appreciater; coffee-drinking, granola-baking, tofu-eating wokeratum; psycholinguist by vocation, fretful porpentine by aspiration.

Header image: 2 repeats of an Islamic geometric tile pattern from the Alhambra Palace

Avatar: single repeat of a pattern from the Royal Alcazar of Seville

Contributer at Nerds of A Feather (http://www.nerds-feather.com/)

#nobot #nosearch

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ml, to academicchatter
@ml@ecoevo.social avatar

Let's get this @academicchatter moving with a question every academic can chime in on:

What are the top websites/blogs you go to for news of what's going on in your field?

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@ml @academicchatter I subscribe to couple of mailing lists -- Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing, and Human Sentence Processing Society. That keeps me up to date with job announcements, calls for conference papers, and the occasional large collaborative project.

I used to sign up for lists of new publications form key journals, but now the only time I have for reading is when I'm doing a lit review for a specific project anyway, and then I just run to Google Scholar.

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

I've had a pair of students who've taken every class I've offered all year and started out really struggling. Like, a lot. Like, getting Cs and Ds in their writing assignments. But they worked super hard, came to office hours, showed me lots of drafts, and their MA dissertation proposals are super good! Well-structured, well-written, showing evidence of really strong learning in both writing and technical experimental design skills. Proper A level work. I'm so proud!

ergative, to bookstodon
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Now that Thing of Thing and Thing is going away, it seems the next titling trend is (often plural) Proximate Demonstrative Determiners Adjective Noun

These Violent Delights
These Broken Stars
These Hollow Vows
These Tangled Vines
These Silent Woods
These Toxic Things
These Impossible Things
This Tender Land
This Woven Kingdom
This Savage Song
These Shallow Graves
These Rebel Waves
These Fleeting Shadows
These Deadly Prophecies
These Monstrous Ties
These Burning Stars

@bookstodon

abdalian, to linguistics
@abdalian@lingo.lol avatar

Is there a #linguistic term for an interlocutor saying the last word of the previous speaker’s sentence in unison with them? Not just occasionally or when the previous speaker is having trouble recalling a word, but nearly every sentence, possibly even when that sentence is not the end of a turn? I’m looking for articles or research about this out of personal curiosity.

#linguistics

@linguistics

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@abdalian @linguistics I have a student who does that. It's maddening.

ergative, to animals
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

FYI, friendos, if you have a UK-based Netgalley account, this MASTERPIECE of title + cover design is now available:

(I haven't read it yet, but I'M GOING TO!!)

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/379156

@bookstodon

ergative, to fantasy
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Dear book publishers everywhere:

Hire this artist to do your covers!

https://www.instagram.com/superstarfighter/

@bookstodon

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

A propos of , here is a photo that Mr Absolutive found, of all places, at the Daily Mail (ptooey).

(please don't infer anything untoward about him; he checks all the newspapers on election day now that twitter is gone)

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@vitriolix nah, mate, this is in the UK.

ergative, to science
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Hi, folks! I've got a set of nano-reviews up at Nerds of a Feather!

Live Long and Evolve: A non-fiction book by an evolutionary biologist about what life on other planets might look like, charmingly interwoven with relevant Star Trek lore.

The Extractionist: a very Cyber futurist heisty type book, which I found well constructed but somehow dull

THe Frame-Up_Magical art thieves. Perfectly fine, but not special.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/04/nanoreviews-live-long-and-evolve.html

@bookstodon

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Is it a bad sign when the plumber takes a look behind your old dishwasher and giggles hysterically?

(Don't answer that. Everything seems to be under control, for now.)

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross I'd rather have that than what I got, which was, 'Oh, crap' halfway through the installation.

waldoj, to random
@waldoj@mastodon.social avatar

I made a new Mastodon bot, called "I Hope This Email Finds You.” Twice a day it proposes a novel way to conclude that sentence. (It uses phrases from Google Books that include the phrase “finds you.”) I've been having fun reading these, so I turned it into a bot because you, too, might have fun reading them. https://botsin.space/@thisemailfindsyou/112295528875440987

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@timrichards @waldoj @kate @thisemailfindsyou I get it from ALL my students and professional services staff at my UK-based university.

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Look, just click through for the pictures of the wee miceys.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68788690

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

oh, no, AI is taking young finance bros' jobs!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/business/investment-banking-jobs-artificial-intelligence.html

bud_t, to academia
@bud_t@m.ai6yr.org avatar

One of my students is no longer my student. She is now a Dr. It always gives me goosebumps to call them "Doctor" for the first time

@academicchatter

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@bud_t @academicchatter One of my students recently finished her degree, and she's an RA on a current project. I love emailing people and adding, 'Please direct your questions to my colleague, Dr [former student], for issues relating to [project component].'

JulietEMcKenna, to random
@JulietEMcKenna@wandering.shop avatar

So outrage-seekers have discovered the National Trust’s scones are vegan. As a Trust member for nearly 40 years, diagnosed with cow’s milk protein intolerance over 30 years ago I can confirm dairy-free scones and cakes have been available for years. No one else ever seems to notice, and it makes solid business sense to cater for every potential customer when income from tea rooms supports the Trust’s work. (continues)

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@JulietEMcKenna And even if the intolerances didn't kill children, they were still recognized among adults. I'm thinking of all the 19th century books about people with dyspepsia, or how someone who was generally lucky or healthy was described as having 'good digestion'.

Then there's poor Mr Woodhouse, in Emma, who can't stomach anything other than very thin gruel. Dietary intolerances were definitely behind at least some of that, I'm sure, even if they were described with different words.

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

My sister, who is a few weeks away from being a registered RN told the following story about a very Good Boy.

A patient with schizophrenia suffered from periodic hallucinations of people who weren't there. He got himself a service dog, and one of the service dog's chores was to go up and greet people on command.

So: if the dog went up to greet a person, the person was real. And if the dog did not greet a person when commanded, the person was a hallucination.

Service dogs are all goodbois.

ergative, to fantasy
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Hey, Mastodon, I'm halfway through book four of Libba Bray's 'Diviners' quartet, and it is really good! Just super-solid, well-plotted, well-paced 1920s magical flappers who have to save the world from ghosts. The ensemble cast is effortlessly diverse, and the mood does a brilliant job of capturing that breathless optimism of 1920s America without losing sight of all the darkness lurking underneath it all. A tiny bit purple at times, but super-good.

@bookstodon

thisismyglasgow, to glasgow
@thisismyglasgow@mastodon.scot avatar

Somersby on Dalziel Drive on the Southside of Glasgow. Designed by H.E Clifford in a Scots Baronial type style, it was build in 1902 for William T. Geddes, the Glasgow oil and produce broker.

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@thisismyglasgow God I love me a turret.

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

I can tell exactly who on mastodon is in Europe because they're all complaining about time changes this morning.

ergative, to SF
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

I'm reading Foundation for the first time, in preparation for an upcoming review for @NerdsofaFeather , and I'm torn between 'Asimov is doing something brilliant' and 'Asimov is doing something very silly'. I really hope it's the former. I can see how it could be. But I fear it's going to end up being the latter, because in my experience reading Golden Age , writing in that era doesn't tend to do the thing that needs to happen for the former.

We'll see!

(No spoilers, please)

ergative, to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Once on a forum for fanciers, someone posted that anyone who uses an ink colour other than black is trying to hide the fact that they have nothing serious or worthwhile saying. Modern tendencies for atrocities such as glittery inks are a sign of the degredation and downfall of civilization, unlike the good old days when monks were SRS BUSINESS and used only BLACK.

1/..

ergative, to fountainpens
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

I'm reading a book that mentions inherited , but also is set before railways to Inverness opened, so I'm doing a bit of research into relative timelines to see if this is even possible.

Turns out it is, just barely: First railway to Inverness opened 1854, while eyedropper fountain pens were patented in 1809. So if this takes place 1850, fountain pen is 30 years old, it's possible. (But not if pen is self-filling, patented in1832.)

Did the author check dates, or just get lucky?

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@paradoxmo Yes, I remember that. It was during the writing of The Mikado, which came out in 1865, I believe, so either the writer of Topsy Turvy was a bit behind the times, or else fountain pens proper took half a century to catch on. I could believe either.

ergative,
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

@paradoxmo Ah, yes, 1885, my mistake. (Sorry--skipped over it in your original post entirely). Even later, then.

ergative, to bookstodon
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Hallo, friendos! I have a review of a vintage body-swap book up at @NerdsofaFeather this morning: Strange Journey, by Maud Cairnes.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/03/review-strange-journey-by-maud-cairnes.html

#bookReview @fantasy #sff @bookstodon

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • kavyap
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Durango
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • DreamBathrooms
  • Youngstown
  • ethstaker
  • slotface
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • mdbf
  • rosin
  • normalnudes
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • cubers
  • vwfavf
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • tacticalgear
  • thenastyranch
  • cisconetworking
  • tester
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •