May Helena Plumb
LightNews LightNews
banner
mayhplumb.bsky.social
May Helena Plumb
@mayhplumb.bsky.social
1.7K followers 330 following 4.8K posts
needlecrafter, dancer, baker, Mainer, she/her

PhD in Linguistics, now doing non-ac qual research
Posts Replies Media Videos
mayhplumb.bsky.social
From a friend, seen in a Chicago gift shop...

ADS Word of the Year 2024 is alive and well in the wild #WOTY24
A pack of paper napkins in a shop. They are black with metallic gold text, block capital letters reading "Were you about to rawdog my table?" The are made by Pretty Alright Goods
September 30, 2025 at 8:26 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Yeah I have to assume that "Likely race in major urban areas plays a major role in that modeling." is doing a LOT of work in their methods (independentvoterproject.org/voter-stats/tx). Primary turnout is low and usually twice as many Rs as Ds
L2's methodology for Texas: Texas voters do not register by party. However, when those voters participate in a partisan primary, that ballot choice is recorded and reported on the state voter file. In the absence of stronger indications (e.g. partisan political contributions or identification due to the holding of partisan public office) the most recent even-year partisan primary ballot is used. Texas reports participation in presidential preference primaries in which large percentages vote, particularly in the Republican races. In the absence of any even-year partisan primary participation, the most recent odd-year local partisan primary is used. This information is supplemented through the use of modeling analytics. Likely race in major urban areas plays a major role in that modeling.
August 14, 2025 at 3:38 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Spotted on Taskmaster S19E6... those look like @hankgreen.bsky.social's Cancer Socks!!
Little Alex Horne's foot is wearing a classic plastic shoe and a teal sock with stripey blocks of black, minty green, and cantaloupe orange. (Fatiha El-Ghorri is partially visible walking in the background)
June 6, 2025 at 11:46 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
My favorite from a good set of fact-checks

Gift link: wapo.st/3E46fQt
Claim: “They [China] never paid 10 cents to any other president, and yet they paid hundreds of billions.” Washington Post Fact-Check: This is false. Tariffs have been collected on Chinese goods since the early days of the republic. President George Washington signed the Tariff Act of 1789, when trade between China and the United States was already established. Tariffs on China generated at least $8 billion every year since 2009.
April 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Bringing resilience back to some sweaters now
split seam up the side of my black & argyle sweater seam repaired!! yay!
February 11, 2025 at 2:14 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Today's acts of resilience are donating to lambda legal, writing postcards to spring election voters, and mending the holes in my slippers
My slipper (leather with fuzzy insides) has a hole along the edge the hole is sewn! the mend is very tidy, if I do say so myself
February 11, 2025 at 1:18 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
As noted in the linked article, these are perfectly typical prices for institution-level subscriptions
In September 2023, a staff assistant for the Center for Environment, Energy, and Infrastructure—part of USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation—purchased a subscription to E&E for $20,000. According to E&E, prices for its professional subscription packages typically start in the upper four-figure range and vary based on how many users have access to a subscription. Another subscription to E&E was purchased in September 2024 for $24,000 by the Center for Climate Positive Development—an office within USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security.
February 6, 2025 at 4:50 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
I have made Eric Kim's gochujang cookies and friends, you need to make these cookies #cookieparty
A pile of cookies. They have a spiral of gochujang caramel which bakes to a deep, gorgeous red and bleeds slightly into the cookie. The effect looks a little bit like a flat cinnamon roll. The cookies while baking. The dough is very pale and is puffing up, whole the gochujang is melted and shiny, a spiral river of goodness
January 23, 2025 at 3:38 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Love to see Lawful Neutral thriving out in the wild
A survey design alignment chart. For each alignment, examples are given using silly questions about tomatoes. Lawful Good = Every question is a 10-point agreement scale Neutral Good = Just Best Practices Chaotic Good = Every question is free response Lawful Neutral = All scales in alphabetical order True Neutral = 3-point Likert scales with no labels Chaotic Neutral = Roll a d6 to find out how many options, choose randomly from a 7-point Likert scale Lawful Evil = Bad binning Neutral Evil = Cherry picking data Chaotic Evil = Asking GenAI leading questions
November 30, 2024 at 4:57 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
I was going to let them off the hook for this, but then they allowed CAPTCHA and now I'm annoyed
Today's Spelling Bee puzzle says that "tepache" isn't in the word list
October 18, 2024 at 1:05 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
I hate this so much
A flight via American Airlines from Austin to Philadelphia. It costs $251. The same flight from Austin to Philadelphia, but this time as part of an itinerary that goes on to New York City after a 3 hour layover. This flight itinerary only costs $108.
June 14, 2024 at 10:41 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
My Zapotec teacher planted a tree in his orchard to mark the culmination of our project 💜 Truly some of the kindness, most generous, most dedicated people I know, I have met here
An older man and a young child (both faces obscured) stomp the soil around a newly planted tree
May 6, 2024 at 5:52 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Working in the most beautiful office today, for the last time in the foreseeable future

It hasn't always been easy to work in Oaxaca---I have a complicated relationship with travel. But it has been a privilege, and saying goodbye hurts
A Oaxacan courtyard - it's brightly colored with yellow walls and red trim. Large patio stones, a small fountain, abundant plants in the walls make it an idyllic natural space. In the center, a laptop and notebook sit on bright yellow patio furniture
May 6, 2024 at 5:47 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
You too can:

* be highly focused (on eating people)
* have lots of energy with relatively impediments to physical movement
* span that nebulous space between brain fog and death
* be immune (to further illness, because you're already infected)
this ad for a trendy energy drink uses the catch phrase "Death to brain fog" and claims to provide Energy, Immunity, Focus, and No Jitters the fungus Cordyceps is listed in the advertised ingredients (along with cacao, Lion's Mane, chaga, reishi, and cinnamon)
April 23, 2024 at 2:12 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
idk, I'm a big fan of "can" (apparently)
a lowercase c (which looks more like a lowercase e) followed by a squiggle with two peaks
April 17, 2024 at 9:20 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
y'all look at these absolutely fabulous birds
Two Crested Auklets standing on a mossy rock. They are slate grey sea birds with bright orange beaks, stark white eyes, and small but dramatic curling crests of feathers just as the base on their beak. Their wide, white eyes give them an incredibe goofy expression. Their necks are wide, blending seamlessly into their heads, and just a bit longer than you expect them to be. Photo credit to Nick Pecker on Shutterstock. A dark grey (almost black) Crested Auklet stares into the camera. Straight on, its crest looks like a mohawk. The base of its beak has a pronounced W shape, and with the angle of the camera it's hard to perceive the depth of the photo, making it look barely like a real bird.
April 14, 2024 at 8:43 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Most of my family could see the solar flare during totality, while we just had dark clouds, but it was still very fun! I particularly enjoyed the end of totality, when the daylight came back very quickly
A near-total solar eclipse, visible through clouds
April 8, 2024 at 7:57 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Took a little break from writing the dissertation to revisit some puns #linguistics
Three very simple, sketchy drawings of cats, with the caption "TAM cats / categories". A happy cat is labeled "im-purr-fective" (imperfective + purr). An angry cat is labeled "aor-hiss-t" (aorist + hiss). A grooming cat is labeled "te-lick" (telic + lick).
February 12, 2024 at 2:51 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
T-7 days and the checklist has gone to hell, but I'm still working, I'm going, I'm not giving up...

... here's how you give your house sitter instructions in Diza
To tell your house-sitter that the key will be under the doormat, in Diza you say Zha lady zuby liay. For "under the doormat", "zha lady", the preposition "under" in Diza homophonous with the word for buttock (but fully grammaticalized). The word for both is "zha". Rather than using a copula or "be" verb to describe location, in Diza here you use a positional verb "zuby" which means "be placed" The word for "key" is "liay"
February 8, 2024 at 3:53 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
I had a really nice feeling work day today. Have some Diza verbs!

Finish-The-Dissertation-O-Meter: 37/72ish #Dizartation
A list of intransitive and transitive verb roots, demonstrating (fossilized) causitivization morphology. For example, the pair 'ndyeby' 'boil' and 'sandyeby' 'boil (something)', where the causative form has the prefix 'sa-' or the pair 'ya' 'melt' and 'zya' 'melt (something)' where the causative form has the prefix 'z-'. Other causativizaiton strategies include stem changes (for example initial /g/ because /l/, or the first segment undergoes fortition)
February 6, 2024 at 11:33 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
after watching this (thank you!) I was looking up when she passed away because I couldn't remember...

and this is little happen-stance of algorithms is very excellent
I googled "tina turner" and Google asks "Did you mean: simply the best"
February 5, 2024 at 10:50 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
upcoming event at UT Austin, at which McWh*rter is a speaker 🙃
Is liberalism doomed? Was 1619 or 1776 the true founding of America? Is the traditional university broken beyond repair? Is racism or anti-racism the greater threat to the health of the university? On March 21-22, we plan to have it out. Passionately. Brilliantly. Humorously. Humanely. Respectfully. Vigorously. Civil Discord is a unique collaboration between three academic entities in Austin that share a commitment to free speech, civil discourse, and the urgent necessity of connecting across scholarly, political, partisan, and ideological lines. Through a series of moderated arguments on issues of great public significance, featuring some our nation’s best scholars and writers, we will model the life of the mind in a democracy.
January 25, 2024 at 9:55 PM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
y'all thank you we have gotten so many good duck words today 🦆❤️🦆 #linguistics
A bunch of index cards strewn across a desk, each with the word for "duck" in a different language written in bright colors. A few show the reverse side of the cards, indicating the language, language family, and geographic area.
January 13, 2024 at 12:26 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
thank you!! can you tell me if this is readable?
my attempt at writing 'duck' in Japanese
January 13, 2024 at 12:23 AM
mayhplumb.bsky.social
Hey quick check— would you say this is readable?
my attempt at writing the word for 'duck" in Bengali script
January 13, 2024 at 12:21 AM