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Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

530 followers 270 following 3.6K posts

“Frigidly shy at the commencement of a party, confusingly vigilant about the middle, and insultingly weary towards the end.”

“Combine[s] stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny.”

Pronouns: accustomed to he, also fine with they
http://q.pheevr.ca

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Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

The season for fresh local berries isn’t over; it’s just moved on to cran.

A freshly baked loaf of cranberry bread, in a metal loaf pan, sitting on a granite countertop.

November 7, 2025 at 11:47 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

So, signing the Dal waiver for I 💡 HFX seems to involve booking a (free) ticket through some company called Bounce. They want a name, e-mail address, and phone number—okay, fine. But they don’t like my phone number. 🙄

www.bouncelife.com/events/68f65...

Screenshot, showing the following text:

Welcome to Bounce
You've entered a landline phone number, this phone does not support SMS. Please enter a mobile number and try again.

November 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Bowdlerized version of the cover of Leonard Cohen’s 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony, in which an extra wing has been pasted on to cover up the fuckin’ angels’ naughty bits.

November 3, 2025 at 3:50 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Cube, shmube (Jakobson & Lotz 1949).

A diagram showing multiple dimensions of contrast in the French vowel inventory. The oral vowels are organized into a triangular prism sitting on one of its rectangular bases, with the high vowels and glides at the bottom and the low vowels at the top (as was the tradition in depicting vowel inventories in the Preliminaries framework, where features were primarily acoustic rather than articulatory). The left–right dimension corresponds to place/rounding, with higher F2 on the left and lower F2 on the right. The front–back dimension is tense–lax, with the tenser vowels (or the glides) in the back.

The bottom of the figure thus has the high vowels /i y u/ in front and the glides /j ɥ w/ in the back. The middle row has mid lax /ê ø̂ ô/ (=IPA /ɛ œ ɔ/ in front and their tense counterparts /e ø o/ in the back. The apex of the figure has /â/ (=IPA /ɑ/) in front and /ɑ/ (=IPA /a/) in the back. Each pair of vowels that differ in only one feature is connected by a line (variously dashed or solid depending on the feature).

Projected from the prism is a flat triangle containing the four nasal vowels. The mid nasal vowels /ẽ ø̃ õ/ (=IPA /ɛ̃ œ̃ ɔ̃/) are connected to the midpoints of the lines between their tense and lax counterparts—e.g., /ẽ/ is connected to the midpoint between /ê/ and /e/. Similarly, the low nasal vowel /ɑ̃/, at the top of the triangle, is connected to the midpoint between /â/ and /a/.

October 31, 2025 at 2:49 AM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Note to FedEx: The United States is not a language. (It’s barely even a country anymore.)

Screenshot showing the heading “Language” (in FedEx purple), and below that the words “United States” with a globe icon (🌐).

October 27, 2025 at 6:23 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Were we on the same ferry? I took these photos on the 3:30 from Alderney to Halifax.

The trawler Mersey Venture in Halifax Harbour on an overcast day, passing between the viewer and the big red-and-white cranes of the container terminal.

A closer view of the Mersey Venture, with some fall foliage on the shore in the background.

October 26, 2025 at 7:56 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Last day of the season at wildwoodwatersports.ca

The still waters of a canal in the afternoon sunlight, seen from a kayak (the tip of whose blue plastic prow is just visible at the bottom left). The canal bends here, and its banks are lined with trees—some evergreen, some deciduous, with yellow and orange late-autumn leaves. On the right side, one of the pine trees is leaning out over the canal: the bottom of its trunk is nearly horizontal, but then it curves sharply upwards towards the sunlight. Because the water is so still, the reflections of the trees are not interrupted by ripples, but only by the fallen leaves floating on the surface.

October 26, 2025 at 7:36 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

What’s it like inside your head?

Diagram of the left hemisphere of the human brain, with parts that are relevant to the production, perception, and comprehension of language labelled (plus some other general landmarks).

October 23, 2025 at 9:34 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

A blue jay, perched on a branch, turning to look at the camera.

October 21, 2025 at 3:12 AM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

October 20, 2025 at 6:47 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Detail of Barbara Paterson’s bronze statue of the Famous Five in Ottawa. In the part of the sculpture shown here, Nellie McClung is holding up a newspaper page that says: Journal / October 18, 1929 / Women are Persons… / Les femmes sont des personnes… / 18 octobre 1929.

October 18, 2025 at 6:50 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

I’m sorry, alumni survey, but this is silly. Why do you care whether I’m within Canada only if I’m more than 400 km away? You can be outside Canada and within 80 km of U of T! And you could live halfway between the St. George and Scarborough campuses and be about 11 km away from each of them.

Screenshot of a survey question for alumni of the University of Toronto: “How close to U of T do you currently live?” A pop-up menu offers the following options:

✓ -- Please Select --
Within 5 kilometres
5 to 10 kilometres
11 to 20 kilometres
21 to 80 kilometres
81 to 250 kilometres
251 to 400 kilometres
Over 400 kilometres (within Canada)
Over 400 kilometres (outside of Canada)

September 23, 2025 at 3:04 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

I just never know what kind of wildlife I’m going to encounter out on the water.

A lake on a sunny afternoon. Moored at a private dock is an inflatable boat in the shape of a white unicorn with a golden horn, rainbow-coloured mane and tail, and golden wings. The unicorn is smiling in a way that strikes me as rather self-satisfied.

Also visible: another inflatable boat, which is round, black, and considerably less interesting, and, on the dock, some white Muskoka chairs (or Adirondack chairs if you’re American).

September 21, 2025 at 10:20 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

www.cbc.ca/news/world/b...

Mark Slackmeyer, at his desk at the radio station, gleefully saying “That’s guilty! Guilty, guilty, guilty!!”

September 11, 2025 at 8:04 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

What a completely thoughtless and irresponsible way of framing a question, @nytimes.com.

I sympathize with people who want to live in peace and let others do the same. I sympathize with the bombed, the starving, the kidnapped, the displaced, the bereaved, the uprooted.

Screenshot: The New York Times / Siena Poll
of New York City voters, Sept. 2–6 [2025]

In the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, which side do you sympathize with more: Israel or the Palestinians?

N.Y.C. voters: 26% Israel, 12% Both, [18%] Don’t know, 44% the Palestinians

Mamdani supporters: 5% Israel, 8% Both, [13%] Don’t know 74% the Palestinians

Cuomo supporters: 38% Israel, 18% Both, [16%] Don’t know, 28% the Palestinians

September 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

GBH in the PG this afternoon

September 1, 2025 at 9:43 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

I suppose it depends on what one believes about the felicity conditions for the speech act of praying.

August 29, 2025 at 6:10 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Technically it’s no longer Thursday in my time zone, but here’s something for #ThreeBirdThursday anyway:

A vertical image of three hummingbirds in midair in front of a grey wall with a feeder on it. The top hummingbird is facing directly away from the viewer; the middle hummingbird is facing directly towards the viewer; and the bottom hummingbird is facing up.

August 29, 2025 at 3:26 AM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

A pane of six Canadian $1.40 stamps for international lettermail. The stamps have an image of a green maple leaf and a budding maple twig on them.

42-cent Canadian stamp from 1992, in honour of the 75th anniversary of the NHL. This design specifically commemorates “the early years” of the league (1917–1942). It has images of a pair of old skates, a puck, a hockey card depicting (I think) Nels Stewart in the uniform of the Montreal Maroons, and (in bend, as they say in heraldry) a wooden hockey stick, all on a background of scored ice.

August 24, 2025 at 3:52 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

If you see this, post a tower or some other similar kind of structure.

An ornate brick water tower, which widens partway up. The wider upper part has narrow windows surmounted by arches, and the top edge is crenellated. The brick is mostly red, with yellow used for contrast in creating geometric designs. Our view of the tower is partially obscured by trees with autumn leaves—green turning to yellows and reds.

They say that alt text should give the reader a sense of what they would see in the image. But it’s always hard to know exactly how much information that would be—it really depends on what knowledge you bring to it. Looking at this photo, you might think that the architecture of the water tower suggests that it was built in western Europe in the late 19th century, or you might recognize it specifically as the water tower in Delft, which was completed in 1896. And if you’ve studied architecture, you probably know a lot of words for specific features of the tower that I would struggle to describe clearly and precisely.

August 19, 2025 at 1:32 AM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

Spike translating a Latin phrase by looking up one word at a time in a dictionary as Dalton looks on: “Debase the beef… canoe?”

August 13, 2025 at 7:46 PM

Q. Pheevr

@q.pheevr.ca

I don’t know how the #NYTXW (or today’s setter, Rebecca Goldstein) measures articulatory effort, but I’m skeptical. And Roman Jakobson would like a word.