MeFi Projects

I wrote a book on joint speech (many speakers, speaking/chanting in unison). Its a science book, but aimed at a general readership. After being unexpectedly dropped by a publisher, I'm self-publishing. Details below. The book is available as a free pdf for tablets or smartphones. The associated website has numerous examples and additional documentation. [more inside]
posted by stonepharisee on Jan 5, 2018 - 1 comment

A brief illustrated essay about Pajubá, a mix of Yoruba and Portuguese that Brazilian travestis use in daily life, published in Matter (Medium). [more inside]
posted by TheGoodBlood on Jul 23, 2015 - 3 comments

An ongoing project to identify Irish words used in American English, especially by members of the Irish-American community. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Feb 11, 2015 - 10 comments

I was working on some pretty fun language visualizations, but it turns out there's no worldwide, open dataset of where languages are spoken. So I figured hey, let's make one! [more inside]
posted by soma lkzx on May 20, 2013 - 6 comments

After years of studying these shibboleths, and tracking my research progress here, I'm happy to share some data results from the 2010 survey. My first published article, Sociophonetic Variation in an Internet Place Name is available in Names: A Journal of Onomastics special issue on Names, Naming and the Internet (Maney Publishing). Enjoy! [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Oct 1, 2012 - 20 comments

Step inside the "brain" of Jesus, the Pope, Kurt Cobain, or Tupac to come up with your own sentences and stories. Words are suggested based on the language patterns of the brain (and you are limited to their vocabulary). There's a learning curve, but once you get past it, hilarious times can be had. Read my introduction post or check out the tutorial to get started. [more inside]
posted by mhuebert on Jun 9, 2012 - 1 comment

The Long Bleep will be a public forum for discussion of four-letter words, "dirty" words, swearing, cursing, obscenities, and more. The first step is a questionnaire. Its results will be used to create podcasts and blog posts structured around things that really happened when taboo language was used: confrontations, first encounters, eureka moments, learning situations. Those stories will lead us down cultural and historical paths as we tease out the complicated relationship English-speakers worldwide have with "dirty" words. More information on the blog.
posted by Mo Nickels on Apr 21, 2012 - 3 comments

Your friendly neighborhood word dispensary. [more inside]
posted by DNAshwood on Dec 22, 2011 - 1 comment

I've spent the last few days conducting a comprehensive review, and constructing an annotated index, of the use of variations of the phrase "hurf durf" on Metafilter. The index covers 357 separate comments (and 10 posts) on various parts of the site, in chronological order.
posted by cortex on Apr 20, 2008 - 0 comments