Laurel MacKenzie
@laurelmack.bsky.social
Linguist & bird enthusiast. Associate Professor at NYU.
I understand this frustration. That said, it's exciting that more work is now starting to examine the potential for children to play a role in change *while also* paying full attention to the sociolinguistic work on adolescents, like this recent paper by Erin Hall www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Children’s participation in /u/-fronting in Ontario English | Language Variation and Change | Cambridge Core
Children’s participation in /u/-fronting in Ontario English
www.cambridge.org
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
I understand this frustration. That said, it's exciting that more work is now starting to examine the potential for children to play a role in change *while also* paying full attention to the sociolinguistic work on adolescents, like this recent paper by Erin Hall www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...
There is a whole ¡Vamos! empire now, but this one started it all (and is my favorite)
There is a whole ¡Vamos! empire now, but this one started it all (and is my favorite)
¡VAMOS! LET'S GO TO THE MARKET | Kirkus Reviews
Little Lobo and his dog, Bernabé, journey through a Mexican mercado delivering diverse goods to a variety of booths.
www.kirkusreviews.com
April 30, 2025 at 2:38 PM
www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...
There is a whole ¡Vamos! empire now, but this one started it all (and is my favorite)
There is a whole ¡Vamos! empire now, but this one started it all (and is my favorite)
Assignments in his classes tended to look like this.
December 18, 2024 at 8:57 PM
Assignments in his classes tended to look like this.
Who else has both pioneered a novel approach to the study of language and developed software with animated demons in it? youtu.be/2cLoEPeq5Fk?...
laugh demon
YouTube video by Josef Fruehwald
youtu.be
December 18, 2024 at 8:52 PM
Who else has both pioneered a novel approach to the study of language and developed software with animated demons in it? youtu.be/2cLoEPeq5Fk?...
Into his 80s, Bill Labov was still coding his own software. But it didn’t just do what it needed to do; it had goofy graphics and sound effects and hidden animations that appeared when you clicked things.
December 18, 2024 at 8:50 PM
Into his 80s, Bill Labov was still coding his own software. But it didn’t just do what it needed to do; it had goofy graphics and sound effects and hidden animations that appeared when you clicked things.
HOW could I forget all the little Plotnik bells and whistles?! “This is the Plotnik lion, or maybe it’s supposed to be me.”
December 18, 2024 at 8:48 PM
HOW could I forget all the little Plotnik bells and whistles?! “This is the Plotnik lion, or maybe it’s supposed to be me.”
Thanks to @edballister.bsky.social for this recollection: an anonymous grad student (we genuinely forget who) was looking through a book of Chinese sayings and observed "a lot of these seem to involve the head of the turtle." Bill: "the turtle head is a metaphor for the penis." Turns and walks away.
December 18, 2024 at 6:27 PM
Thanks to @edballister.bsky.social for this recollection: an anonymous grad student (we genuinely forget who) was looking through a book of Chinese sayings and observed "a lot of these seem to involve the head of the turtle." Bill: "the turtle head is a metaphor for the penis." Turns and walks away.
I first met Bill when I sat in on his Dialect Geography class as a prospective student. He was teaching his forthcoming (2007) Lanugage paper. He had a hilarious self deprecating aside about using the library for the first time when researching this paper. "It's incredible what they have in there!"
December 18, 2024 at 5:40 PM
I first met Bill when I sat in on his Dialect Geography class as a prospective student. He was teaching his forthcoming (2007) Lanugage paper. He had a hilarious self deprecating aside about using the library for the first time when researching this paper. "It's incredible what they have in there!"
Bill cycled the mile or so from his house to campus every day. One day he had a minor accident (someone opened a car door into him). He was fine, but got an MRI just in case. He came into class late and reported, with a huge grin, "they said I have the brain of a 25 year old!"
December 18, 2024 at 5:40 PM
Bill cycled the mile or so from his house to campus every day. One day he had a minor accident (someone opened a car door into him). He was fine, but got an MRI just in case. He came into class late and reported, with a huge grin, "they said I have the brain of a 25 year old!"
One day he called me into his office. He had a PDF file that had an E where it needed to have a B. He couldn't edit the text of the PDF, he could only use drawing tools on it. He had drawn two tiny vertical lines to connect the empty spaces of the E and approximate a B. He was so proud to show me.
December 18, 2024 at 5:40 PM
One day he called me into his office. He had a PDF file that had an E where it needed to have a B. He couldn't edit the text of the PDF, he could only use drawing tools on it. He had drawn two tiny vertical lines to connect the empty spaces of the E and approximate a B. He was so proud to show me.
When teaching us how to use Plotnik, he showed us how to save an Excel file as text. But to open the text file, don't double click it on a Mac, or it will open up in a "fiendish little program called TextEdit." (Fiendish because, despite its name, it only saved .rtf files, not Plotnik-friendly .txt)
December 18, 2024 at 5:40 PM
When teaching us how to use Plotnik, he showed us how to save an Excel file as text. But to open the text file, don't double click it on a Mac, or it will open up in a "fiendish little program called TextEdit." (Fiendish because, despite its name, it only saved .rtf files, not Plotnik-friendly .txt)
During an NWAV talk, he showed a vowel plot and identified a couple of outlying tokens as "these little rascals over here." Instant addition to all of our lexicons.
December 18, 2024 at 5:40 PM
During an NWAV talk, he showed a vowel plot and identified a couple of outlying tokens as "these little rascals over here." Instant addition to all of our lexicons.
During a meeting, his phone would ring, and he'd say "Oh, it must be President Obama!" He'd look at the caller ID, and it would be Gillian. "Oh, it's the boss."
December 18, 2024 at 5:31 PM
During a meeting, his phone would ring, and he'd say "Oh, it must be President Obama!" He'd look at the caller ID, and it would be Gillian. "Oh, it's the boss."
Maybe I was primed to see it, but this typo jumped out at me in a paper I was reading just now :)
December 17, 2024 at 6:25 PM
Maybe I was primed to see it, but this typo jumped out at me in a paper I was reading just now :)
This has annoyed me for years. I don't think it ever was an acronym, was it? Isn't it Dutch for "speak"? I think people see the double A and assume it has to be an acronym because it can't be English. But like... that's a licit sequence in other languages! Come on, linguists!
December 17, 2024 at 3:26 PM
This has annoyed me for years. I don't think it ever was an acronym, was it? Isn't it Dutch for "speak"? I think people see the double A and assume it has to be an acronym because it can't be English. But like... that's a licit sequence in other languages! Come on, linguists!
Last time I did Google Drive comments (spring '23), they were very clunky (as you scrolled down through the PDF, they would pop up one at a time, sometimes glitchily). In spring '24 I shared PDFs via Acrobat instead, found the commenting much smoother.
December 16, 2024 at 2:23 PM
Last time I did Google Drive comments (spring '23), they were very clunky (as you scrolled down through the PDF, they would pop up one at a time, sometimes glitchily). In spring '24 I shared PDFs via Acrobat instead, found the commenting much smoother.
...ok, not exactly a "permanent" place after being "extinct," but a more tempered version of what you ask :)
October 21, 2024 at 2:18 PM
...ok, not exactly a "permanent" place after being "extinct," but a more tempered version of what you ask :)
"gotten" did this in UK English separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2020/01/2019...
October 21, 2024 at 2:17 PM
"gotten" did this in UK English separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2020/01/2019...
Thanks for the boost!! 🏴☠️
September 19, 2024 at 2:46 PM
Thanks for the boost!! 🏴☠️