Christopher O.
@phaseolus.bsky.social
Old man, loves Milwaukee and cats and Baroque music, pining for a more just and equitable and kind future
George Washington:
"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
November 21, 2025 at 3:40 PM
George Washington:
"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
"May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
Kwak Belgian Ale exists, and it's sometimes served in a special glass that actually quacks when you drink out of it, sort of
November 16, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Kwak Belgian Ale exists, and it's sometimes served in a special glass that actually quacks when you drink out of it, sort of
This is Kitten, my best friend for about 14 years until I lost her last summer. She enjoyed surfing when she was young & we lived in a place with hardwood floors. She'd run as fast as she could, leap onto a dinette chair, and surf for a couple feet
November 13, 2025 at 10:58 PM
This is Kitten, my best friend for about 14 years until I lost her last summer. She enjoyed surfing when she was young & we lived in a place with hardwood floors. She'd run as fast as she could, leap onto a dinette chair, and surf for a couple feet
cool, another opportunity to share this gif
November 12, 2025 at 8:04 PM
cool, another opportunity to share this gif
Completely unrelated, but I stumbled across this yesterday on Wikipedia and just wanted to share
November 10, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Completely unrelated, but I stumbled across this yesterday on Wikipedia and just wanted to share
Meanwhile in Canada
November 10, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Meanwhile in Canada
Their own eyesight, in the pursuit of long eyelashes
November 6, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Their own eyesight, in the pursuit of long eyelashes
Their own health, and the health of their children, by dosing with vicious nostrums
November 6, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Their own health, and the health of their children, by dosing with vicious nostrums
Speaking of Halliburton
November 3, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Speaking of Halliburton
Sibelius, Valse Triste, from Allegro Non Troppo
'scuse me, I'll be weeping in a corner the rest of the afternoon
'scuse me, I'll be weeping in a corner the rest of the afternoon
October 24, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Sibelius, Valse Triste, from Allegro Non Troppo
'scuse me, I'll be weeping in a corner the rest of the afternoon
'scuse me, I'll be weeping in a corner the rest of the afternoon
It's time for another good skull - bad skull! Good skull:
October 22, 2025 at 3:26 PM
It's time for another good skull - bad skull! Good skull:
credit: this Lingthusiasm podcast ep bsky.app/profile/ling...
![Gretchen: [Laughs] Those first got called an “ordinary bicycle,” much like a “standard transmission,” and then they’re really not the ordinary kind of bicycle that anybody has.
Lauren: So, you had an ordinary bike and a safety bike, but then we just started calling them “bikes” and “penny farthings,” and now you have “e-bikes.” You can imagine a world in which if they became the standard technology, they would just be bikes. You’d have an “acoustic” or a “mechanical” bike or something like that.
Gretchen: This shift has happened over my lifetime with a word like “phone.” If you say, “I’m on my phone” – well, “I’m on my phone,” a bit different from “I’m on the phone” or like, “Where’s the phone?” The older use of landline phone is really much more about THE phone situation, whereas this is much more about MY phone situation. But if you say, “Draw a picture of a phone,” my default in imagery is the handheld touchscreen thing that I didn’t have when I was a child because they didn’t exist. I didn’t even have as a word when I was a child. A “phone” was a landline phone. “Phone” has gone through several stages with respect to this.
Lauren: I’m not gonna lie. When you said you wanted to do an episode so you could talk about retronyms, I thought you were just gonna make your “acoustic bicycle” joke. I did not expect to actually go on a massive lexical change journey with you.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jh3ldn2xrumqoh6lr3mxdrwb/bafkreieatkhpgxcbxfjvq3vkdt2io2em2drvgqrubwhe6gnfr7imm3ebgu@jpeg)
October 5, 2025 at 2:37 PM
credit: this Lingthusiasm podcast ep bsky.app/profile/ling...
I'd never heard (or maybe noticed) the term 'acoustic bike' until I listened to a linguistics podcast two days ago that told me it's an example of a retronym
![Gretchen: When you say this in a sentence, people will sometimes give you a double take, but they will understand you. Like, “Oh, yeah, I’m just gonna get the acoustic bicycle because the electric bicycle is on the fritz,” and they’re like, “Acoustic? Oh.”
Lauren: It’s wild that that is actually – is “acoustic” gonna become productive do you think?
Gretchen: Well, this is the thing. I put this on Bluesky because I was so entertained by it, and a number of people got very mad at me because they’re like, “This can’t possibly be the word for it. We should call it an ‘analog bicycle’.” But I was like, the other one isn’t a digital bicycle. An “e-bike” is not the same as a “digital bike.” A digital bike is one you ride in a videogame. Some people were saying a “manual bike,” but technically “manual” means with the hands. And if there’s one thing you don’t use for a bike typically, it is the hands. A hand-operated bike is an entirely different object. These exist. But the typical bike is not that.
Lauren: But also, manual cars only got called “manual cars” because we invented automatic transmission. This is just a series of revelations for me.
Gretchen: Yeah. But my favourite responses are the ones that were like, “All right. If ‘acoustic’ is productive now, I guess that means I have an acoustic toothbrush.”
Lauren: How retro of you.
Gretchen: It’s not an electric toothbrush. I think it’s so silly and so surprising. “Bicycle” has gone through this specifically several times because the current bicycles that we have with two wheels of equal size, when they were introduced, they were called “safety bicycles” because they were easier to handle than the earlier dominant style which had one large wheel and one small wheel.
Lauren: Like a “penny farthing” or something like that.
Gretchen: Well, “penny farthing” is a retronym because –
Lauren: No!
Gretchen: [Laughs] Those first got called an “ordinary bicycle,” much like a “standard transmission,” and then they’re really not the…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jh3ldn2xrumqoh6lr3mxdrwb/bafkreibdkggpsm73r4jm4uxig2s4frwhpivkm6cdyeazwbuerukewxxjaq@jpeg)
October 5, 2025 at 2:34 PM
I'd never heard (or maybe noticed) the term 'acoustic bike' until I listened to a linguistics podcast two days ago that told me it's an example of a retronym
is it a kuchen-backerei?
September 24, 2025 at 6:18 PM
is it a kuchen-backerei?
My local library system has several tens of thousands of DVDs I can borrow
September 1, 2025 at 2:14 AM
My local library system has several tens of thousands of DVDs I can borrow
She came SO close to doing exactly that. I looked up the latitude & longitude from the camera in Google Maps, and here's the street view of the mailbox she hit
August 31, 2025 at 7:39 PM
She came SO close to doing exactly that. I looked up the latitude & longitude from the camera in Google Maps, and here's the street view of the mailbox she hit