Distinguished Linguist

Just someone who's passionate about language. Any pronouns except he/him.

[Quite Interesting @qikipedia]

Words that turn 100 in 2025 include sweatshirt, motel, recycle and group therapy.

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@MerriamWebster Is the other pound sign, £, related to any of this?

[Quite Interesting @qikipedia]

A 2015 physics paper titled ‘What if the entire Earth was instantaneously replaced with an equal volume of closely packed, but uncompressed blueberries?’ concluded that if the Earth did turn into a pile of blueberries, everything would explode.

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Very happy to read that 'hurkle-durkle', meaning to stay in bed *long* after it's time to get up, is being revived in current US slang, having lain dormant for 150 years! It's about time.

https://t.co/R0TSNMepth

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’ (19th century): a puppet politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.

[Quite Interesting @qikipedia]

Handsome used to mean easy to handle.

[Adam Sharp @AdamCSharp]

There’s a rhyming Italian expression for saying “take it or leave it” that goes o mangi questa minestra o salti dalla finestra. It means “either eat this soup or throw yourself out the window”

[Adam Sharp @AdamCSharp]

An especially brutal Swiss insult is Meitlivelosattelschmöcker. It means “he who sniffs the saddles of girls’ bikes”

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

I love this, mainly because it's the same thing but more extreme.

[Adam Sharp @AdamCSharp]

As today is World Octopus Day I’ll again mention that a Spanish equivalent to “like a fish out of water” is como un pulpo en un garaje. It means “like an octopus in a garage.”

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@yk_ntg Feed us your girls - Lydia the Bard

[no country for old crow 𓅃 @dylunsohelo]

what's your favorite malaphor?

mine is "that train has sailed"

[Amelia™ @RealiaAmelia]

i was thinking “porn is a weird word, i wonder where it comes from” and in a moment of genius intellect i googled “porn” assuming that the first thing to come up would be a resource like a definition or wikipedia page which could show etymology. this was not the case.

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@rhymes_melody @HDunn_Writer This is such specific advice, but amazing. I love it 😂

[Ashley Winter MD || Urologist @AshleyGWinter]

Toddler brains are so incredible. We were at the park & the kiddo/parent at the swings next to us were speaking Armenian & my daughter started talking to them in Armenian despite our family being 0% Armenian. She must be picking it up at school. Like hey you can't put on shoes but you can casually learn a new language.

[El Cabbage @AlCabbage045]

Arabic did diverge, its speakers just consider themselves to be speaking the same language (with the notable exception of Maltese), while Romance speakers consider their languages to be distinct. Romance speakers only “stopped speaking Latin” bc they decided they did

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@chainborne @Waterstones @book_tokens They don't? That's not what the staff at @Waterstones Fort Kinnaird told me last December 🙁

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@dancefeverqueen @StephenWensley @NoContextBrits @duolingo @duolingoUK This exactly! Particularly irritating when the American is further from the original. I translate "um filme" to "a film" but then I have to retranslate it to "a movie".

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

Another year another @nycmidnight 250-word microfiction challenge. Let's go 😎 https://t.co/AV1ZuMXb4b

[Distinguished Linguist @DistLinguist]

@LizardNettle @sarenraesaves @lily_lxndr It's fine to assume the most common solution applies to most people. It's when they assume it applies to *all* people that it's a problem. Zebras still *exist* lol.