All you bible readers out there know that the Song of Solomon goes kinda hard, but have you ever read it in Middle English? (1/…) Guess what the word for breasts was in the 1300s when John Wycliffe was translating that bit of biblical erotica into our burgeoning tongue.

Some christians just…love god. Their religion is a kind of celebration. A fandom.

Church for them is like getting to go to ChristCon every week.

I respect that.

But then… …there are Christians who *argue*.

Evangelists, apologists, missionaries, etc — all the folks who have a million reasons you should believe their god is ultimate and absolute.

The etymology of “soccer” is very silly. It’s British schoolkid slang from the late 1800s that just stuck.

There are rules in English — grammar rules — and you better follow them if you want to be understood and accepted. But don’t get stressed, because here’s the thing: You already know and follow them.

These aren’t rules you *should* follow. They’re rules you *do* follow. Instinctively (if you’re a native speaker).

Here's a nature fact that seems really important for everyone to know…

You can get poison ivy in your lungs. 😳 I read a biography of Townes Van Zandt awhile ago, and there was a one- or two-sentence anecdote that enlightened me to this unfortunate possibility.

👋 I’m looking for a freelance video editor/producer for a new youtube show. More info 👇 Most of my internet yammering has been on tiktok, instagram, and youtube shorts, so I’ve had no need for an editor… Actually, that’s debatable. I might have *needed* one, but I’ve never *used* one. Anyway…

My son — a little human who I love and care for — literally destroyed me.

That's right, I said it — ✨Literally✨

I was literally decimated. I took the kids antiquing recently. Obviously not their first choice of activity, but they had pretty good attitudes. They rolled with it. For awhile.

I was taking them to lunch, too, so, whatever. They should be happy.

Being pro-cop and being pro-life are both unfortunate for a similar reason… Generally speaking (and generously speaking) both groups want a positive thing, right?

Fewer abortions and more safety.

(Again, I know that’s a generous interpretation of their goals, but it’s what they would *say* they’re for, so let’s go with it for the conversation. 🤷‍♀️)

Should you ever tell anyone that saying “aks” instead of “ask” is a lazy way to talk?

⛔️ No… No is the answer.

But in case you’re unsure why: Here’s ✨one simple trick✨ (the internet loves those) you can use to decide whether you should correct someone else’s language — grammar, pronunciation, whatever.

Is there someone trying to have sex with the same person you’re trying to have sex with? (1/…) Maybe there’s another team vying for the championship? Or perhaps your cat is always stealing your partner’s lap?

I hope you haven’t heard anyone called a hussy recently. But you know what it means, right?

✨A promiscuous woman✨ A quaint synonym for “slut.”

It started out short for “housewife,” though.

What happened? (1/…) Pejoration is what happened — the linguistic phenomenon of a word coming to mean something more negative than it used to.

“Well, that is a privileged perspective”…

…is a response I got a few times to my take on voting yesterday.

(The one where I said if you don’t know or care about a political issue, it’s ok to just vote the same as friends you trust.)

To which I say: Well…yeah. Of course? I *am* privileged. What other kind of perspectives can I have?

The question is, is my privileged perspective harmful in this instance?

Hey, just a quick reminder that there’s no obligation to know or understand the issues in order to vote. (1/…) You can just ask a friend you trust who to vote for and then do the same thing.

That’s perfectly legit and has the exact same net benefit for the election and democracy at large as if you’d studied up.

It’s very possible that the word “neurodivergent” will become a slur in our lifetime. Not because there’s anything wrong with it. Of course not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any list of letters that we call a word.

I almost never title my paintings, but 30 seconds ago I sort of impulsively decided to name them all before the art crawl in NE MPLS this weekend…

Wanna help?

If I post a pic of a painting, will you tell me what it’s called?

If I get a few likes/yesses, I’ll get started. 🙏 I mean, yeah, I could call it “urinal plumbing,” but what else you got?

Conservative christianity is concerned about your well-being like the Albino is concerned for Westley in the Pit of Despair.

It’ll nurse you back to health…but why? The torment of constant guilt is built into evangelicalism. It’s a ✨feature✨.

That gnawing sense of things being morally off inside you no matter what…

That’s supposed to be there.

Have you ever been, like, corrected for, like, using “like” like this?

Well then, I have some good news for you: This usage of “like” is sometimes used for emphasis, but more often it's used to, like, hedge what we're saying.

And when do you think people started doing this?

Can we blame teenagers? Or maybe 1980’s valley girls?

Nope, neither.

As a kid who was raised conservative Christian in the 80s, I was led to believe that the way to avoid getting AIDS was to only sleep with your spouse. (1/…) I understand the reasoning behind that, namely:

If two people in their whole lives only ever hook up with each other, it’s unlikely they’ll experience any sexually transmitted unpleasantness.

Why do some people say “aks” instead of “ask”?

It’s not “just their accent” and it sure as hell isn’t a mispronunciation.

There’s a linguistic reason and a cultural reason. Let’s quickly look at both: First, “ask” and “aks” are the same word because of ✨metathesis✨, which is when two sounds in a word trade places.

For example, nobody corrects you when you swap the T and R sounds in “comfortable” and say “comfterble,” instead.

There's no such thing as a commonly mispronounced word. Because in language, common = correct. (1/…) To be clear, you *can* mispronounce a word.

For instance, the other day my wife said “flute flies” instead of “fruit flies” and we had a laugh, because flute flies would be the most annoying musicians ever.

That's just a slip of the tongue though, and we all do it, but…

Sex sells. But so does ✨ridiculousness✨.

And sometimes that’s easier to pull off. Relatively speaking. 

Perfect example: In 1936, Copenhagen clothier Christian Troelstrup ended up with an overstock of hundreds of coats and had no idea how he was going to sell them.