official-linguistics-post:

elodieunderglass:

elodieunderglass:

plasmalink:

plasmalink:

No googling, curious about something

If someone is “favouring their left leg” as they walk, which leg is injured?

Left leg

Right leg

ALT

Things are going well

Spoiler

Keep reading

Okay normally I’m on the side of “words mean whatever we need them to mean”.

but guys, I don’t like the suggestion that it’s what is happening here. Being unfamiliar with the term, and guessing its meaning based on vibes, doesn’t mean you have equal authority on whether it’s “correct” with the community who actively use this word in a technical sense.

please do consider that if you haven’t been exposed to the word in the context it’s used in, “both are correct” and “you can interpret it differently” and “there is no right or wrong answer” and “it feels like it SHOULD be X” cannot be a fully realised take. Sure, linguistics recognises there are rules in which meaning changes - but “laypeople being unfamiliar with the word, and liking vibes better” isn’t one of them.

You can do that with most words, especially slang, and shape them to the needs of the majority, but this isn’t like… a fanfiction word, invented for fanfic and, like, solely used for injured hockey players where it doesn’t matter if the injured limb swaps sides 4 times in a sex scene and phases through a stomach. It is, in its context, a bit more load-bearing (ha) than that.

It’s fine to be unfamiliar with the context, and it’s fine for words to change, but do just take a quick second to hear it in a native sentence!

One of the most common ways of using this word is to assess four-legged animals. “Favouring” is a specific grouping of behaviour - a hesitancy in gait, stiffness, reluctance to put weight on a limb. It’s often inconsistent, as the animal tries to compensate or conceal the pain. It may not be a full limp or obvious lameness, since prey animals especially will actively try to conceal this; favouring is a subtle reluctance, and a useful word for a very specific recognisable behaviour that the animal is usually trying to lie about. (That’s probably why it’s used in romance fiction, as it’s an interestingly romantic and stoic way to react to pain, and doesn’t mean the limb is inconveniently disabled. A fictional character favouring a wounded leg can wince attractively when it’s jostled, but it doesn’t matter too much if the author forgets and has them run to the door suddenly - “favouring” isn’t incompatible with “running” in horses either.)

The sentence “Favouring the off hind” is equestrian jargon: it means “pain behaviour on the back right leg.” It does not mean “opposite-pain in the not-on deer” and is not confusing in its professional register.

If you’ve only vaguely heard of “myeloma”, and most people in a poll are guessing it’s a skin cancer, that doesn’t mean that myeloma and melanoma can now readily collapse into the same word - they’re under active use in their native contexts, where the people frequently using them do need to communicate the difference between skin and blood cancer.

A poll of laypeople misunderstanding “myeloma,” or non-horse-people misunderstanding “favouring,” isn’t quite enough to indicate a full semantic shift and change of meaning of the term. The community that uses the term “favouring” in the context of “limb injury” - vets, farriers, farmers, commentators, equestrians - knows what it means and uses it consistently in the same way. They’re not confused. because to them, it isn’t a vibesy, sex-scene-hand waving word. It’s a cluster of pain signals.

If you aren’t familiar with that usage, then that’s really more about your own lack of familiarity. Not all interpretations DO carry equal authority, especially when one is just confusion/unfamiliarity. You just haven’t met it before, and that’s fine.

Tl;dr: I’m all for words changing meanings, but we shouldn’t be too quick to declare that when it’s based entirely on unfamiliarity and vibes-based readings.

“[L]inguistics recognises there are rules in which meaning changes - but ‘laypeople being unfamiliar with the word, and liking vibes better’ isn’t one of them.”

anyway. official linguistics post

(via zeddpool)

yardsards:

indelible-waltz:

basil-from-omori:

had to show you guys. he looks so unbelievably bad. for context he always gets shit crusted in his fur because he doesn’t maintain it so my mom decided to give him a haircut and wanted to even it out

they greebled him

(via zeddpool)

gothiccharmschool:

memorizingthedigitsofpi:

vibraph0ny:

Everyone’s all “ohhh 2026 bring back physical media” until I start talking illuminated manuscripts and then suddenly we’re not on the same page anymore

I made an illuminated manuscript skin for AO3? So im doing my part!

Of course I switched my Ao3 skins to this.

(via zeddpool)

infectiouspiss:

ALT

predictions are locked in. 2026 is going to be a good one

(via zeddpool)

5weekdays:

5weekdays:

5weekdays:

5weekdays:

my doctor told me i have to do PT this fucking sucks

these exercises are sooo monotonous like i keep walking down the same hallway over and over 🙄

who was that.

the fucking fetus in the sink won’t accept my insurance

(via zeddpool)

axolotlrealm:

sweet-tea-skitty:

sweet-tea-skitty:

ryotouzukai:

Haven’t seen anyone talking about it here, but vocal transfeminist and writer Tara Knight has been sent a threat from the fbi insisting that she stop speaking about “radical gender ideology” and get rid of the past 3 years of her work.

A black trans woman is getting personally threatened by the fbi for being a transfeminist. What the fuck. Hopefully this gets more reach than my usual posts so that people who are able to can support her.

Here’s her latest post about it.

[Transcript: So as you all have likely heard I was forwarded a letter from the FBI informing me that my work and my platform and everything I’ve built over the past three years has to go, um, for propagating what they are calling ‘radical gender ideology’. Um, this comes from Trump Executive order, um basically saying I’m a propagandist for domestic… september eleventh… thing. Um, I would… I— I’ll just say, point blank, short period. I have no intentions of stopping anything. Maybe to my detriment but I’ve never been the smartest one. That’s— all I’m gonna say on this.]

Just as I was writing that transcript she posted this—

[Transcript: So I was told and informed that it’s probably in my best interest to tell all of you where you can find me in the event that I get deleted because having a platform is probably the only thing that will keep… everything okay, if you will. So I will provide the links and ads to my TikTok, my Substack, my Bluesky, the like. You’ll be able to find me there in the event… y’know. Y’know.]

TikTok: @ bundleof.styx

Bluesky: @ bundleofstyxx.bsky.social

Substack: @ bundleofstyxx

Support Tara Knight

Support Tara Knight

Ko-fi

^ just putting this here along with the transcripts, please support her if you can

(via zeddpool)

michelljustsilly:

allthingswhumpyandangsty:

me, covered in my blorbo’s blood after I wrote a fic about them

Transformers version

(via thegatorsgoose)

helloitsbees:

i found my switch

(via humming-fly)

shamebats:

Post by @ sonbride.

(Source: vm.tiktok.com, via archangelsanonymous)

sealcubezz:

sealcubezz:

really one of my favorite types of characters in the world it seems is. well i dont know how else to describe it but “losing the idgaf war” but theres at least 2 genres of this that ive noticed I Gotta Make an Image hold on

its like this. even better when a character has the range to be both

(via writeouswriter)