we did wicked things-

That’s the number of people at level 1 literacy or below. Level 1 literacy is like grade school level. Able to read labels and straightforward instructions and whatnot.

Bad linguistics journalism bingo

Do you feel like crying every time you read, see or hear anything concerning linguistics & languages in popular media? Does the n-th installment of the Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax™ make you cringe? Are you tired of writing letters to editors correcting them about ling & lang facts? Then this is the game for you. 

If you have suggestions for further sheets, please contact us.

Like, you have FIVE teenage girls living under the same roof with SYNCRONIZED menstruation cycles and emotionally absent parents. I bet that house hasn't known a day of peace ever since the kids started piling up.

Every sister (minus Therese) has had hand-me-downs at some point. Mary and Lux get pissed that Therese is always the one who gets to buy new clothes first. Bonnie whines that she looks younger than Lux, even though she's older than her. Cecilia sits quietly in the corner and transcribes her sisters' bickering like a stenographer.

Their parents have to cycle through at least three other names before they get to the one they're looking for.

"There- Ceci- Bon- you know who you are! Get down here!"

Therese keeps detailed notes in all of her textbooks for her sisters to use in the future. Whenever the girls want to ask their parents for a favour, they send Bonnie as a diplomat because they know she can convince them by quoting a Bible verse or two.

One time their parents were absent and Therese had to cook dinner for the whole squad. She burnt her food so bad that Cecilia offered to bury the pot in the backyard and then they all snuck out to get burgers instead.

Cecilia used to keep a family of snails in a metal box. Lux got a hold of said box and used said family of snails to terrorize Bonnie. Before she started actually smoking, Lux would put those honey-dipped pastry rolls in her mouth and pretend they were cigarettes. Mary is appointed as everyone's hairdresser (and she's also the only person Cecilia allows to touch her hair).

Bonnie hoards all of the stuffed animals and tucks them in properly every night. Mary has to get physically violent in order to shower first. The others mess with her by turning her water cold. Therese appoints herself as the family's acting patriarch whenever Mr Lisbon is absent (which is pointless - the one in charge is whoever screams the loudest, usually Mary or Lux).

Edward Poynter (British, 1836–1919) The Ides of March, n.d. Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester

Up on Longreads today is an excerpt from Kyle Devine’s new book, Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change, published by @versobooks. As vinyl’s popularity has surged over the decades, so has scrutiny of its environmental cost, and the music industry’s efforts to address it. In this excerpt, Devine visits a record-pressing plant, taking a look at one business working to green the industry.

Billy is keenly aware of the problems of plastic pollution, and he knows what it means to make records from petroleum products. ‘People talk about vinyl and wax, and it sounds cool,’ he says, 'but there is no getting around that vinyl records are PVC and every one that I make adds to the plastic in the world.

dua lipa + books (part 2) 📚💚

My problem is that I'm lazy, as well as poor in the antiquarian researcher's instinct. I love a good NYRB/LRB overview essay on a great writer, usually a review of a big bio or a multi-volume correspondence or journal, or a short old Penguin Lives-type biography on a great writer (I just read Edmund White's on Proust), because they tend to "curate" the best quotes from the journals and letters. That way, I don't have to wade through all the "Feeling poorly today. Received Lady Ottoline nevertheless. Drank pear-blossom tea and Nellie broke a cup" stuff. But often luminaries' most interesting thoughts on life and art are found in their letters or journals, there's no doubt about that. I just lack the thrill of the hunt; I want someone else to find them and clip them out for me!

Anyway my friend had some not so nice teeth and during dinner the father of his fwb was like “you work where you work, you sleep with him and his teeth look like that? Get him an appointment.”and then bounced. So his fwb made him an appointment at the practice she managed and my friend ended up needing like 3k worth of dental work and his friend with benefits just gave it to him for free.