Leslie Ambedian

I didn’t know this! Revelatory! The actual word derives from the (French) sound of the block of print clicking into place…

@susie_dent Another in our family -- the condition of being unable to move because a cat is sitting on you and mustn't be disturbed. We call it being pussed.

A question: what are the things you wish there was a word for? And have you come up with your own word to fill that gap?

@susie_dent We especially use it to describe particularly pointless crankiness with no discernible cause.

@susie_dent I once attempted to say to my infant "who's a cranky monkey then", and it came out "who's a crunkle munkle?" Ever since, he's been "the Munkle" and "to crunkle" is an oft-used verb in our house (and sometimes out of it). No one ever seems to notice the latter isn't a real word!

Dear makers of women's clothing… Pants pockets should be like poetry. DEEP ENOUGH TO BE MEANINGFUL.

@beechchap @ninapaley Ditto!

@ninapaley Ummmm . . . I need another option. I only wear one when I leave the house . . . which doesn't happen every single day . . . so . . .

Bra question for adult human females only! Do you wear a bra:

@FionneOrlander Can confirm re velvet, at least with my cat.

@notaveneering @AmandaPCraig @dorothylsayers I wish Petherbridge had done Murder Must Advertise -- my favourite of the non-HV Wimseys.

@AmandaPCraig @dorothylsayers Carmichael wasn’t my idea of Wimsey at all. Edward Petherbridge, on the other hand, was superb, as was Harriet Walters’s Harriet.

I called for this wonderful series of detective novels to be remade in a recent lecture to @DorothyLSayers society.

Delroy Lindo called it “a classic case of something that could be very negative becoming very positive.” For families living with Tourette’s, this past week has not felt positive. Since the BAFTAs and what happened with John Davidson, I have been arguing that my son deserves to leave his home and be included in society like everyone else. I have had to explain, again and again, that Tourette’s is neurological. That tics are involuntary. That coprolalia is not belief, not intent, not character. Yet the conversation keeps circling back to whether people like John, and by extension my son, should simply stay home to avoid offending anyone. Stay home. Remove yourself. Do not attend events. Do not exist publicly in case your disability makes someone uncomfortable. That is the reality this week. This is not abstract for me. My son already navigates anxiety and the constant fear of being misunderstood. Inclusion cannot mean only if your disability is convenient. It cannot mean you are welcome as long as you do not embarrass us. My son deserves to leave the house. He deserves to attend events. He deserves to exist in public. And I am exhausted from having to argue that basic truth.

i saw someone use ai;dr earlier in response to a post and i think we need to make this a more widely-used abbreviation

Happy birthday to my favourite of all the haters, Charles Darwin

@JoeBangles11 That was the thing I found so surprising when I became a parent -- I expected it to be hard, and I expected it to be rewarding, but I didn't expect it to be so much fun!!

1412 days since this ray of sunshine came into my life. I always knew I'd love being a father but had no idea how much fun it would be. Blessed.

@RefilweSeboko 42 here. Naturally conceived, and no issues other than gestational diabetes in the 3rd trimester.

Are there any women on here that had a healthy pregnancy/birth 35+ years old? I'm looking for hope for myself.🤞

A teenage girl beat the reigning champion, a boy, in the regional chess tournament. He knocked the board over and stormed out. The organizers gave her the trophy in a back room. The local paper's headline read, "King Dethroned by Dark Horse." Her photo was not included. The boy was interviewed about "handling pressure." She quit competitive chess. But please, tell me about sportsmanship.. This is the ugly double standard: Boys get sympathy for losing, girls get erased for winning

@MrsBertBibby @BradfemlyWalsh Listening to it you can often get the gist -- when I studied it my professor started off by reading a parable (in Sweet's Anglo Saxon Primer) and it was instantly recognizable as the man who built his house on rock vs sand.

@BradfemlyWalsh Canterbury Tales is in Middle, rather than Old English though.... Old English is better known as Anglo Saxon. Not really recognizable English.

My English teacher at secondary school could speak Old English and read us The Canterbury Tales as it would've sounded contemporaneously. It was fantastic.

Happy Christmas to you all, my friends, followers, and fellow pedants. May your pauses be short, your lists be clear, and no one wonder whether you’re eating Grandma.

I am not 'playing dumb'. I do not have the slightest clue was 'living as a woman' means other than 'adopt a frankly regressive and offensive sex stereotype as I go about my daily activities'. If you know better TELL ME. WHAT DOES IT MEAN SAVE ME FROM MY IGNORANCE

@latsot My sister suffered brain damage at birth, and didn't "look" disabled. She heard that word around her all her life. Knew it was an insult. Knew it meant people like her. So cruel :(

I am not a big fan of people using the word "retarded".

@teaforpterosaur IRA hunger striker. I remember his death.