The Mysterious Masked Linguist

Saving the world from overzealous prescriptivists. But mostly enjoying great examples of syntactic ambiguity.

[wizard-laundry]

This is relevant once again. I apologize if you are a real human getting blocked/reported.

[phantomofthehoepera]

I want the record to state I have never been this hard in my entire life

[caesxr]

‘beyond the scope of this paper’ is a dear friend to me. I Am Not Fucking Talking About That

[somestorythoughts]

"Look I can stay on track or this paper can be three times as long, your choice."

[winampskinmuseum]

nice outfit LOSER. 1443 called but in a dialect of Early Modern English that hadn't experienced the Great Vowel Shift yet so i don't know what it said

[tachyon-log]

"'Effect' is a noun, and 'affect' is a verb," reprimanded the schoolteacher. The students merely looked on with dull affect, bearing no genuine desire to effect change in their own vocabularies.

[fellator]

this fetish stuff is getting out of hand what the fuck is word play

[youcanstillwhistle]

I think the "pre" and "post" parts in "preposterous" should cancel each other out but everyone else seems to find my idea completely erous

[motherfucker-unlimited]

Germans completely outdid the english language by calling tv a farseer. They got their orcish shamans to name that shit

[da-riya]

[mrlovenstein]

I'm doing a Charity Livestream benefiting the Alzheimer's Association with @sarahsscribbles and @jimbenton! RSVP HERE 👉 events.alz.org/fundraisers/sarahandersen/cartoonists-for-a-cause

[smbc-comics]

This is one of those jokes you make, then realize people in the field have probably been saying it verbatim for 20 years.

Check out the bonus panel on the site.

Only 2 days left to back our project for Parenting - An SMBC Collection on Kickstarter!

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[excitementshewrote]

[mysweetoddbird]

sorry but once you notice how often ppl use a southern accent as shorthand for being unintelligent you can never unsee it. classism is baked so deeply and why are you acting like anyone who talks the way my grandfather talks is stupid.

[in-the-drowning-deep]

ditto cockney accents being used to denote stupid and evil. why are you acting like someone who talks like a member of the working class is irredeemable and an idiot.

[electricpentacle]

There was a girl I knew back Up North, one of my dad's philosophy students. Brilliant lass, sharp as a tack, incredibly original thinker. But as soon as she opened her mouth at a conference everyone immediately assumed she was thick and started full on 'splaining to her, and my dad and I are pretty sure that's because she had an incredibly heavy rural Lancashire accent.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

If you have a Southern drawl in the US, you are usually considered cultured and intelligent. If you twang (I do), you are considered a stupid hick who don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

I have seen people hear my twang come out and immediately deduct points or make some wild assumptions. I've definitely heard the Northern English and cockney accents get the same hate before this post, but also let's all meet up and invent something absolutely unintelligible to use when needed. It would be hilarious.

[chongoblog]

It’s fun to use contractions inappropriately, but it’s hard to explain why that’s

[lunarthesugarglider]

thats a common interest we've

[chongoblog]

Yeah, but people get annoyed by it, like when you throw soda cans in the trash can’t the recycle bin

[our-queer-experience]

source from mpr

[nimashkawizii]

Tecumseh was motivated to learn Ojibwe and earn the World Language Certificate by his family and his people. 

“I’m honored to be the first person to do it,” he said. “It is very, very awe inspiring.” 

“A lot of people don’t really know Ojibwe,” Tecumseh said. “it’s been oppressed throughout history … I’m the first person in my family, my direct family, to not be at risk of being put in a boarding school. … I think that by taking someone’s language away you’re taking a part of themselves and their identity. By learning that, I wanted to let people learn my language, our language, and spread it across the world.”

Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal Nations Education Committee Member Raina Killspotted presented Tecumseh an eagle feather as a language warrior. Williams presented him with a blanket as he accepted his certificate[…]

“My advice to younger people or other people who are trying to learn Ojibwe is there are people out there who would be very happy and grateful if you want to learn that language,” he said. “And I think if more people can take it upon themselves to learn Ojibwe then it would very much help their chances because Ojibwe is endangered.” [source]

[elyonholic]

— The Golden Girls: S07Ep8

[smbc-comics]

For body soap, especially private areas, you want a gentle, moisturizing Antichrist.

Check out the bonus panel on the site.

We’re raising funds to print a brand new book of compiled SMBC comics on Kickstarter right now! check out our project for Parenting - An SMBC Collection

───── ◆ ───── ◆ ───── ◆ ─────

SMBC ◆ PATREON ◆ INSTAGRAM ◆ BLUESKY ◆ STORE

Buy this comic as a print.

[transmechanicus]

If you have a PhD or an MD you can say shit like “Doctor’s orders” and you sound authoritative and powerful but if you’re a step short of those and you say “Master’s orders” you sound cringe as hell and possibly corrupted by the One Ring, this sucks

[chaos-has-theories]

YOU. you keep talking