Linguistics Jobs: Interview With A Metadata Specialist And Genealogist

So, in the light of the 13 year anniversary of Steam Powered Giraffe, I decided to share a picture that was taken back in 2018, at Weekend at the Asylum steampunk festival. Last year I shared some pictures I took during the concert that evening, but this picture was taken during the day, at the photo op. I don’t believe that I’ve ever shared it before, but I just felt like it was the right time.

I don’t know if I’ll ever meet the band again, but I’ve met them 3 times by now, and this was definitely one of the highlights, though the band was absolutely lovely every time I met them. And as an added bonus, I’ll share the pictures I had taken with David in my The Spine cosplay, because, you know…. That was kind of mandatory, right?

Happy Anniversary @officialsteampoweredgiraffe ! Keep on truckin’!

Same is happening to me with worldbuilding

Noticed that the porn bots are now trying to get to me by tagging their shit 'linguistics' so it appear in my normal feed because I follow the tag.

The Middle Rodentocene: 10 million years post-establishment

Retro Rodents: The Furbils and Duskmice

By 10 million years PE the hamsters have diverged into many different forms, such as ungulate-like runners, mustelid-like predators or macropod-like hoppers. But while some of the resident rodents have further specialized away from the basic rodent body plan, two lineages, the furbils (family Caudatocricetidae) and the duskmice (family Cricetomuridae) are notable in having retained fairly conservative rodent anatomy, and are all the more successful for it: these two unassuming lineages have attained a diversity rivalling that of the jerryboas, and fill nondescript mouse, rat, hamster or gerbil niches all across the world.

The furbils, the more derived of the two lineages, are highly social creatures with long, tufted tails, displaying a very marked sexual dimorphism in many species, with dull, drab females and extravagantly-adorned males sporting striking markings and decorative tufts and manes of fur, which are used for display and attracting mates. Furbils tend to live in harems of several breeding females and one dominant male, while younger males are typically solitary and roam about searching for an opportunity to breed with any receptive females. Furbils are omnivores, feeding on insects, invertebrates, seeds, nuts and fruit, and males are known to attain their brilliant colors from pigments in their food: their colorful fur serving as an honest advertisement to their good health.

Male furbils are highly territorial, with the most brightly-colored and brilliantly-patterned males being the ones most attractive to females. This same coloration makes them more conspicuous to predators, as an unfortunate side effect: however, the fact that it gets them a higher chance to breed nonetheless allows them to more effectively spread their genes at the cost of individual longevity-- and in addition, essentially shows off their fitness by advertising an intentional handicap: a male that survives to breeding age even with such visible colors must be a very fit individual indeed, as far as females are concerned.

The most distinctive furbil characteristic of all is their long tail, which depending on the species serves a wide array of functions: for display, social signaling, or balance. One lineage of furbils, however, the subfamily Caudotomae, have a different, more drastic use of their tails: as a defensive measure used to divert predator attacks.

The Caudatomae are unusual among their furbil kin as they are solitary and come together only to mate, and as such lack the marked sexual dimorphism of their cousins. They have instead opted their tail into a lure, with the tuft at the end serving to draw predator attacks away from their body and head. Usually this is only meant to distract the predator and allow the furbil to escape: however, should the tail be caught, the furbil can actually detach it completely and flee from danger, as a special joint at the tail's base allows it to break off with little injury when sufficient force is applied. Unlike lizards who use a similar tactic, however, the tail-dropping is a one-time trick in the animal's whole lifetime, as it does not regrow once shed-- as such, it is a costly sacrifice that is only used as a last resort if no other means of escape is possible.

One very peculiar species, however, has compensated with the lack of mammalian regeneration with a downright absurd adaptation: multiple fracture points along the length of its tail. Known as the fuse-tailed dynamouse (Fragmacaudamys cabuum), it can fracture off its tail a maximum of up to three times, as its tail is comprised almost entirely of three very long and stiff vertebrae. Its reddish fur camouflages it well in Beta-twilight, the time when it is most active, but a conspicuous yellow tuft on the end of its tail serves as a predator distraction tool. If the tail breaks off at a joint the tail quickly heals the end of the stump and a new tuft of yellow hair soon grows around the injury, restoring the form and function to a now-shorter tail. Once a dynamouse has broken its tail three times, the tuft forms directly at the base of its rump, and while no longer to shed any more segments, can still serve as a distraction by making predators attack the wrong end and still giving the now-truncated dynamouse a fair chance to flee.

Just as strange and diverse as the furbils are the even more basal duskmice, small, stocky short-tailed rodents that still very closely resemble their hamster ancestors. Duskmice are a diverse group numbering nearly a hundred species, most of which are nondescript mouse-like seed eaters that hoard food in burrows and emerge at night and sometimes at Beta-twilight to forage, avoiding the many diurnal predators active during the day.

Some duskmice, however, have taken off to unusual niches, to take advantage of food sources beyond the reach of other hamsters. One genus, the molemice (Subterramys spp.) have adapted into specialized burrowers, developing large clawed forepaws for shoveling away dirt and hairless flat noses to push loose soil aside. They tunnel underground in search for roots, tubers and worms, and rarely ever come to the surface unless disturbed or if their burrows are flooded by heavy rains.

Another duskmouse lineage, the pondrats (Aquacricetus spp.), have instead taken to the water to feed on aquatic invertebrates and water plants that occur in abundance in freshwater bodies such as lakes and streams. They are the first hamsters on HP-02017 to specialize to a water-dwelling lifestyle, and as such have utilized a very unusual part of their anatomy to thrive in wet habitats: their cheek pouches. Acting as both flotation device and air storage, they can contract specialized muscles in their cheeks to compress the air, allowing them to sink and dive, and when returning to the surface quickly reinflate their cheek pouches to rise quickly to the top. Due to this specialization the cheeks can no longer be used as a food storage, and the pondrats instead hold food in a new different set of pouches that open lower in their mouths, surfacing every now and then to feed on their haul while floating at the surface.

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And thus with the duskmice ends the list of diversity in the Middle Rodentocene, the peak of speciation in a world of the small and scurrying. Our next stop will be at the Late Rodentocene, 20 million years PE: a time of even more diversity, but one that heralds the end of an age-- and a new promise of even greater things to come.

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“The average US president has been convicted on .75 felonies” factoid isn’t true. average US president has been convicted on 0 felonies. Felonies Donld, who has been convicted on 34, is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted

You’re welcome.

REBLOG IF IT IS OKAY TO COME INTO YOUR INBOX AND SAY THE RANDOMEST SHIT I CAN THINK OF BECAUSE I REALLY WANT TO INTERACT WITH YOU.

Hamster’s Paradise has gotten really weird and unsettling since I last followed it so no longer following it

Hey, help me please. How do you write description in your novels? Not a character one, surrounding ones. How do you describe from 3 POV , the background of the novel?

5 Tips for Writing Great Descriptions

Hi there! Thanks for writing. I talk at length about this in my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (See Chapter 4 / “Building Your Story World,” Chapter 16 / Setting the Scene, and Chapter 21 / “Choosing the Right Details” for the majority of the discussion about description, but it’s peppered throughout), so I’ll just give a brief rundown here. :)

Tip #1: Use concrete, sensory details

That means describing, with precision, a detail you can see/hear/touch/taste/smell. Avoid using vague words that are hard to visualize or sense, like “the house was ugly” or “the weather was bad.” Instead, choose a sensory detail (or two) for your descriptions, for example “the house was a wretched shade of salmon pink” or “the wind was blowing I could taste dust in my mouth.”

Tip #2: Try not to over- or under-use descriptions

It’s common for beginning writers to either use no description, or go completely overboard. I give examples of both in my book. While there’s no hard rule about how much description is too little or too much (it depends a lot on the particular story, genre, and the writer’s style), I personally like to include around 4-5 sensory details per page.

The idea is to give the reader a solid sense of where they are without going on and on, making them want to skim over as you carry on for paragraphs about the smell and texture of a doily.

Tip #3: Use more description during important parts of the story

Description draws your readers attention to what you’re describing. Use that to your advantage. If that doily contains a blood stain that’s a pivotal clue in your murder mystery, by all means spend three sentences describing the particular color red of the blood or the weird smell it emits. Where you linger, the reader will linger.

Tip #4: Use description to set the scene

Use more description at the beginning of a new scene, or anytime the location of your story changes. I talk about this in the section on transitions in my book. Summary gets a bad reputation in fiction, but these transitional paragraphs are the perfect time to paint the scene with sensory details about your character’s surroundings.

Tip #5: Pay attention to “camera movement”

One common thing I see in writer’s manuscripts is what I call “jerky camera movement.” Here’s an example:

Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspect’s mansion around noon. A white, floppy dog barked ferociously in the window. It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse looked down and realized her shoe was untied. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow. 

In this example, the “camera” moves from the driveway, to the dog in the window, to the “day,” to Jesse’s shoe, to the outside of the house. If that was your head, looking around the scene, you’d get dizzy pretty fast. Here’s a smoother movement, starting wide and focusing in on Jesse’s untied shoe.

It was a warm, sweltering day. Jesse pulled into the driveway of the suspect’s mansion around noon. The house had three large columns in front, each wrapped with a gawdy red bow. In the window, a white, floppy dog barked ferociously. As Jesse approached the door, she looked down and realized her shoe was untied.

These aren’t perfect examples because I’ve dashed them off just now, but you get the idea :) Try not to make your reader seasick by making them look all over the scene (unless you’re trying to achieve that effect, for example, in a scene where your protagonist is drunk or discombobulated).

Hope this helps!

@frislander