Intellectual history

April 16, 2026

In two parts. First, an appreciation of a piece of intellectual history written by Geoff Pullum:

Geoffrey K. Pullum, The prehistory of generative grammar and Chomsky’s debt to Emil Post, Historiographia Linguistica, October 2025

And then a puzzle about the source of the central idea in my very first academic publication (appearing in an extraordinarily obscure place):

Arnold M. Zwicky, Grammars of number theory: some examples, Working Paper W-6671, MITRE Corporation (Bedford MA), 20 November 1963 (available on-line here) — hereafter, GNuTh

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USPS penguin day of the past

April 15, 2026

On 4/10/26 my USPS mail included a postcard showing penguins at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, with brief messages from three different people, each signed with a first name. So as not to get these people embroiled in this discussion, I’ll use their initials: E (common male name), I (uncommon female name), M (common male name). E’s message provided some crucial contextual information:

Ahoy, Arnold! Saw these really cute guys at the aquarium and thought of you.

I’s and M’s messages were about the penguins’ behavior they observed at the Shedd. E and M I couldn’t identify, but I’s name usefully picked out the only person I have ever known with this name, so I was able to send her e-mail about the card, which turned out to be deeply baffling.

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Posted in Mistakes, Penguins, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

After the rain, around the block

April 15, 2026

Yesterday (4/14), my helper Isaac and I took a walk around the block (Ramona to Forest to Emerson to Homer and back to Ramona), taking advantage of the end of days of rain. Officially we were visiting the oregano plant on Emerson St. (see my 4/14 posting “Things I didn’t know”, in the section on “a labiate plant with fleshy leaves”), but we traversed a largely changed scene: the cat’s-claw creeper on the arbor over my entry was coming to the end of its 4 or so days of bloom; the calla lilies on Ramona St. had finished their days of blooming and dropped their flowers; the rose bushes in Forest Ave. that were all buds before the rain were now a solid mass of beautiful single white roses; there were big passion-flowers on Emerson St.; and the Chinese elms on Homer Ave., totally bare on our last walk, had fully leafed out in green, turning a whole block into a pleasantly shaded path.

And on the street strip on Forest, a bunch of bare 4-foot sticks had been transformed into a dense display of bright-white dogwood blossoms. Much like these:

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Posted in Language and animals, Language and plants, Language and politics, My life, Palo Alto, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »

Focusing on form rather than content

April 15, 2026

In today’s (Wayno / Piraro) Bizarro, a bank teller focuses on how quaint it is that a bank robber has written his demand on paper (the way they did it in old movies), while disregarding the pressing threat of the robber’s gun:


(1) A quibbling triumph of details of form over the real threat of content (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)

Faced with dreadful, uncontrollable situations, people sometimes take to fretting about some minor issue that is more easily remedied.

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Posted in Form and function, Humor, Linguistics in the comics, Mistakes, Movies and tv, Peeving | Leave a Comment »

More questions for anauralics

April 15, 2026

Following up on my 4/13 posting “A host of voices”, on

an enormous amount of variability in the way mental imagery and mental sounds work, in different people and for different purposes

focusing on auralia, on hearing sounds in the mind, and on anauralia, its lack (in a small percentage of people), in various contexts:

in silent reading, in the voice of an internal adviser, in recollected speech or music, in auditory hallucinations, in speech or other sounds in dreams

I had my University of Arizona colleague Heidi Harley as an exemplary anauralic (while recognizing that each person has their own profile of mental-percept abilities); what she can tell us is important, beause it appeared then, and still does, that there’s not much research on mental sound (or mental imagery), in perceptually deficient subjects (anauralics, aphantastics) or even in perceiving (“normal”) subjects (auralics, phantastics), though it looks like there’s an enormous amount of variability.

Now: two further contexts to consider.

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Posted in Dreams, Memory, Music, My life, Perception, Variation | Leave a Comment »

Things I didn’t know

April 14, 2026

Things I probably should have known, but didn’t, and have just recently discovered: one linguistic (on a pronunciation in BrE), one botanical (on the identity of a plant growing on the street a block from my house).

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Posted in Dialects, Furnishings and tools, Gay porn, Language and food, Language and plants, My life, Pronunciation, Variation | 5 Comments »

Long Island, duck!

April 14, 2026

Today’s (4/14) Zippy strip has our Pinhead in conversation with a giant cement duck:


(#1) An anatine day in Southampton

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Posted in Language and food, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

A host of voices

April 13, 2026

Following up on my 4/11 posting “Variability in our mental lives”, about (a)phantasia and (an)auralia, having to do with, respectively, visual and auditory mental experience and their lack: having, or not having, a mind’s eye or a mind’s voice. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that there’s an enormous amount of variability in the way mental imagery and mental sounds work, in different people and for different purposes.

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Triplefruit trail mix, the musical score

April 13, 2026

A couple days ago, with my helper Isaac, I was preparing triplefruit trail mix: a large pouch of commercial trail mix — of almonds, cashews, and (dried) cranberries — with added packs of (dried) blueberries and cherries. (A couple handfuls of this trail mix is then added to some granola — rolled oats with almonds, raisins, cranberries, and pecans — to make a bowl of my breakfast cereal, which is, finally, moistened with yogurt and milk. Fiber, fruits, nuts, probiotics, and yumminess.

Assembling the trail mix involves dumping the pouch of commercial mix and the packets of dried fruits into a large plastic container, fixing the top firmly on the container, and then getting its contents thoroughly mixed, by turning and shaking the container briskly, over and over.

Trail mixing is noisy, energetic, and surprisingly entertaining. You are moved to treat the stuff in its container as a percussion instrument, to sway your hips a bit, and to contemplate breaking into song. This time, Isaac and I had the very same inspiration:

Shake it up, baby … Twist and shout … Come on and work it on out

Oh yeah! There’s a musical score for trail mixing, and it’s glorious.

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Posted in Language and food, Language and medicine, Music, My life | 2 Comments »

The pleasures of Pittsburgh

April 12, 2026

From the Visit Pittsburgh site, for 4/12’s occasion, “How to Celebrate 412 Day in Pittsburgh”:

We love celebrating Pittsburgh every day, but 412 Day is an extra excuse to honor all things Steel City.

Whether you live in the 412 or outside of it (maybe the 724 or 814?), people far and wide come to Pittsburgh to celebrate 412 Day every April 12th. The city comes alive in fun festivities and Pittsburgh pride

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Posted in City life, Events and occasions | 1 Comment »

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