This week in phraseology

Hello! In this edition, we have linguistic gymnastics1, book bliss, a blip of a “kids these days” trend, further proof that we do need each other, actually, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Tsundoku

If you’re a reader, you’ll enjoy this one, discovered via at Sketchplanations, a go-to source for learning cool new things. Each week, the artist and writer does a sketch to illustrate a concept to help make sense of it, and he’s done them weekly since 2013! I know maintaining streaks is a behavior that is both very of this Internet era and often not great for ye olde menty health, but I kinda dig this one.

According to Hey, Tsundoku is one of those perfect words that describes a very specific behavior—in this case, keeping piles of books around without reading them:

I find tsundoku rather aspirational. A desire to learn and read, backed up by your wallet, and you either have more than you can manage or you’re too busy doing other non-book things to get through them all. Good for you.

I found the origin of this Japanese word in a lovely brief essay by Antoine Wilson on Literary Hub called The Pleasures of Tsundoku, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Book Piles:

Tsundoku dates from the Meiji era, and derives from a combination of tsunde-oku (to let things pile up) and dokusho (to read books). It can also refer to the stacks themselves. Crucially, it doesn’t carry a pejorative connotation, being more akin to bookworm than irredeemable slob.

As internet enshittification continues at breakneck speed, making it harder to find accurate information, sourcing information in human-written books2 and reputable online texts will become a valued skill. So consider those book piles an investment in both your own brain power and our collective wisdom.

2. Malaphor

Wordpecker reader Noel sent this post about malaphors LAST YEAR and I’m just now getting around to writing about it. (Wordpecker tsundoku? You bet!)

I’ll illustrate the meaning of malaphor with a list from this “malaphors that don’t exist” clip from the Will and Rusty’s Playdate podcast:

• Curiosity spilled the milk

• Don’t judge a circus by its monkeys

• Beating up the wrong bush

• Shit or get out of the bag

• If it ain’t broke don’t build it in a day

• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and eat it too

Got a favorite malaphor? Share it in the comments:

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3. Ablaut reduplication

This is such a fun thing to learn and I am excited to share it with you! Via Merriam Webster, the very best to do it on social and a personal dream employer of mine:

If you can’t access the post above, the gist is: an ablaut is a type of systematic vowel variation that occurs in some languages. In the example shared here, lists of three words in English have I-A-O vowels in them (tic-tac-toe), and lists of two have I and either A or O (click-clack, King Kong). They go on to list common examples, reversing them to show how odd they feel (hop-hip, zag zig). Language is such an awesome gumball machine!

4. Social medicine

I found this article via the incredible folks in the Great Flyover Discord group, which you can join by subscribing to either the Men Yell at Me newsletter and podcast created by Lyz Lenz or newsletter by Garrett Bucks. We talk a lot about what community means and why it matters in there, and we get to share nominations for the Dingus of the Week from Lyz.

Someone in the Discord shared this Bloomberg piece on social medicine (paywalled; archive.ph is your friend in these situations) that outlines how doctors in strained healthcare systems are prescribing social activities (shared hobbies like fishing, art classes, and more) to reduce depression and potentially improve chronic health conditions. The piece rightly notes that the greater need is actually systemic change to better support people (access to healthcare, housing, and education, labor rights, help during crises, etc.). But even then, so-called social prescribing could be an important source of support.

Most everyone I know is burnt crispy and struggling to maintain normalcy in the current hellscape, and many friends in my orbit are self-prescribing social medicine. Examples include in-person friend hangs, art workshops, group hikes, informal fiber arts meetups, and short group walks in the autumn sunshine hosted by my amazing local coffee/pottery shop.

Added to my tsundoku/TBR list from this piece: Art Cure: The Science of How The Arts Save Lives by Daisy Fancourt

5. Neighborism

This term pairs nicely with social medicine. I first discovered it via , who writes the excellent newsletter. Spinks recently addressed a reader question asking what creatives will do if we all lose our laptop jobs (something I am currently experiencing, btw, as businesses decide they don’t need humans to do content strategy or writing because Claude can do it faster and at less expense). Her response was that there’s no one she’d rather have around when everything goes to shit than her fellow scrappy creative collaborators. Hard agree!

As people become increasingly disempowered, we’re going to need each other more than ever. Spinks cites the neighborism displayed in Minneapolis in early 2026 in response to the unbridled cruelty ICE unleashed on residents.

Adam Serwer coined the term in an excellent Atlantic article about what MAGA got wrong about Minneapolis:

a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.

I have a small friend group that meets semi-regularly in the spirit of neighborism. We gather over snacks and talk about how we can help our neighbors and strengthen our ties among ourselves and our community. It’s been a great source of hope and laughter in 2026.

Added to my TBR list/tsundoku habit: Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg

6. Scientology run

Earlier this year, a TikTok “speed run” trend emerged that prompted people to race through the Scientology building in L.A. In one event, people dressed in costumes, including Jesus and Sonic the Hedgehog. As far as “Bad Things the Youngs Could Get Up To”, this doesn’t rank for a person (me) who used to roller skate in the back of St. Mark’s in middle school until a secretary kicked them (me) out. As with most stupid viral trends, this one seems to have died off.

Bonus Nuggets

1. Punny school printer names!

It’s been a minute since I’ve shared punny names for inanimate objects. Here are a few epic printer names from Chelsie Wilkerson (aka thecurlyhairedlibrarian), via Wordpecker reader Deborah:

If you can’t access the post, the printer names include: Dwayne Xerox Johnson, Scanley Tucci, Don’t Take That Toner With Me, and The Artist Formerly Known as Prints. Incredible work; chef’s kisses all around!

2. I would die for Dawn the Duck.

Here’s a Boston Globe article about Dawn for those of you not on Meta.

That’s it for this edition! See you in a couple of weeks. Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Hello there! This fall has been a mixed bag, with an anniversary celebration, an evil cold virus, family game night (this round: Horrible Therapist1), and the raising of the giant skeleton in the front yard, an event that brings me deep joy because I know my friend’s skeleton-obsessed five-year-old is gonna lose her mind when she sees it. I am also baking at Smitten Kitchen’s pumpkin cinnamon rolls for the first time and will report back on the results. (Update: they are incredible.)

Pretty typical middle-class suburban fall stuff. Question: It’s totally normal to not be able to talk about your life and work with a friend without crying in your local coffee shop, right? Seems super okay! Very American! Anyway, my friend pointed out that I’m in deep caregiving and work burnout, and wouldn’t you know it, he was right. Naming that burnout clicked something in me, and I felt like I could finally take my foot off of the gas pedal in my brain (which is almost always in “pedal to the metal” mode) and gain some mental breathing room. (It’s cool to mix metaphors when you’re in burnout; it’s okay, I checked.)

Major upsides: I’m super privileged to have access to good mental health care and I’m not in crisis. Burnout just hits different. I know because I was there during COVID. You’re pushing yourself to run up a steep staircase, but it feels like when you try to run in dreams and your legs are so heavy they won’t do what you want, AND despite all your effort, you keep falling back a few steps for every one you gain. So you push yourself back up a step or two, repeating this cycle over and over and over until you finally hit bottom and can’t muster the energy or the fucks to start back from that bottom step.

I don’t know what any of this means for me, because I’m currently exploring that mental breathing space. I’m sharing this because that’s what writers do. Maybe you’ll see yourself here and think, “I too cry at the coffee shop! And at my monitor! And scream in my car! And maybe it’s burnout and maybe I can find help with that.” Like I said, it all feels very American and Of This Era.

On to the reason we’re all here! If you’re new here, I’d like to say I don’t always make things this weird, but I’d be lying if I did. This week, we have a viral slap-happy comedy bit, chonky playground slides, a fierce wee bird, and more. Let’s get to it!

1. Forested internet

This phrase came from longtime Wordpecker superfan Rebecca, via the Wordpecker Phrase-O-Matic Submission Machine, also known as “a Google Form.”

Forested internet appears in the essay I dream of quieter computing by Henry Desroches, a beautiful bit of writing about longing for the old internet:

I’m thinking of quieter computing. Everything these days is glass and refresh rates, is clouds and cloud-shapes, is brought to you in feeds and in troughs. It’s hard not to pine for a forested internet, an imagined one of searching and finding, of patient and aimless wandering.

I knew I’d love Henry’s work when I saw the banner across his blog:

TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN. TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS. FIX YOUR HEARTS OR DIE.

I appreciate his point that we can’t go back, but we can work to make things better. I know being online before social media existed and blogs became infested with popup-ads was fun. I also met some of my best friends by telling jokes on Twitter, including the pal who diagnosed my burnout like some sort of cappuccino wizard. Things were never perfect and they are worse, but there’s still hope to bring back some of the good that existed.

What do you miss about being online in the before times?

Leave a comment

2. The slut gnomes of false Berlin

This phrase comes from the land of The Extremely Online (::raises hand::), except it was not on my radar. This is because I avoid being on Bluesky, which I’ve taken to calling The Bad News Place. I know I can tweak my feed and just follow bird and gardening accounts, but I don’t care enough to bother.

Here’s the deal with this phrase: In late 2023, someone who has since deleted their account posted this on Bluesky:

A great capture of the Jeopardy! cadence and one of those posts almost guaranteed to make the rounds in meme screenshots on Threads and Reels.

In September 2026, these categories appeared on the actual show:

Turns out the extremely online Ken Jennings was the culprit who talked the show’s writers into adding these categories. Nice work.

I have deeply disliked Jennings for some of his past tweets, including one that made fun of people in wheelchairs (that’s a hard no, Ken), but it seems he publicly apologized for those “jokes,” triggering my oft-cited quote for 2026, “It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.”

3. Chanty Beluga

Here’s another extremely online reference that I probably missed because I’m not in the right online bubbles. As much as I write about memes, I’m not on social that often and not on that many platforms. These days, I mostly hang out in a couple of Discord groups, a Slack friend group (yes, really), and flip through IG stories while pooping.

If you’re not familiar, Chanty Beluga is a recurring bit created by comedian and actor Courtney O’Donnell. She came up with the character name late at night while filming the upcoming movie Stephanie, Bride to Be, and her fellow cast members thought it was funny. Can’t you picture it? Working together for eight or 12 hours until you’re so slap happy that everything you come up with is funny? I know I’ve been there. I love that this is getting so much play; it’s one of those bits that gets funnier the more you see it come up:

@chantybelugaIs there an AA for coffee 😂

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4. Telephone slide

No real commentary about this except that it’s a lovely combination of weird and cool that feels very Japanese to me, despite knowing embarrassingly little about Japanese culture. Taken from a 2018 blog post awesomely titled Interesting Japanese Playground Structures #12 – Telephone Slide, originally found via Group Hug.

Interesting Playground Structures #12 implies the existence of 11 other “interesting Japanese playground structures.” Well, I checked and there are 49 and counting on the Tokyo Fox blog, including Panda Slide and Squid Park.

6. Goth robin

Wordpecker reader Tonya sent this one in and you could hear my squeals of delight across the entire Midwest. This is not only great because it features an extremely cute birb, but it’s a feel-good story, too. Native to New Zealand, the black robin was down to one remaining breeding pair until conservationists worked to bring them back. This year, they also won the popular Bird of the Year competition, which you may know from past controversies such as the year a bat won and another time when John Oliver successfully tried juicing the vote for the pūteketeke.

Bonus Nuggets

1. So sorry to do this to you

Have you seen the memes going around comparing RFK Jr.’s face to recalled foods? Well, I’ve curated a handful of the best ones for you. Turns out the account making these memes is run by the Democratic party. TBH, I didn’t know they had it in them.

How about you guys stop dicking around in Canva and support progressive candidates and their broadly popular policies instead?

2. Ever wonder what I’d be like if I was a dog?

Now’s your chance to find out. Fun fact about me: I super-extra hate the Liberty Mutual jingle because it’s not really a jingle, it’s just people singing the word Liberty three times. Ask my husband about this and watch his eyes deaden as he relives the trauma of my rants. Singing the company name three times is the creative equivalent of ending an essay with “and that’s what I did on my summer vacation.”

Validation is mine! Meet Piper, aka Toni in dog form:

@wrench.therapyMy dog hates the #libertymutual jingle #libertymutualinsurance #jingle #dogs #dogsoftiktok #dog #tv #fyp Contact licensing@newsflare.com to license

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That’s it for this edition! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious.

This week in phraseology

This week we have 3D printers joining the resistance, corporate slop shaming, a word policing fail, the return of a beloved recurring feature, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Flock Sock

In response to the dystopian proliferation of Flock cameras in cities across the U.S., a 3D printing enthusiast called SquidInk created the Flock Sock:

The Flock Sock is a slip on cover designed to help protect a Flock camera from the harmful radiation of the sun. Your city spent their very own hard earned tax dollars scattering these cameras everywhere to keep you safe, all it cost you was a little privacy. The very least you can do is help protect these valuable civil servants from getting a bad sunburn.

According to the instructions, you can use a 1” broom handle to place a Flock Sock over your neighborhood Flock cameras. To keep them safe from sunburn. Theoretically.

2. The boiling people alive factory

Speaking of dystopian proliferation, “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me” writer and comedian Vinny Thomas posted a video about quitting the “boiling people alive” factory as a play on a disturbing thread posted on X by 27-year-old Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon after quitting his job with the AI firm.

My rec is to scan this excerpt from the thread (which I suspect is really a cynical attempt to juice Anthropic’s IPO) and then watch Thomas’ video.

Here are a couple of takes on whether AI will “kill us all” from Matt Stoller and Cory Doctorow that I found useful. I think these unregulated technologies are advancing faster than the average person can understand and if we had a functioning government, we’d regulate the shit out of them. I also know there are misinfo campaigns happening designed to make people panic, and I’m working on not giving in to that by not following doomer/alarmist accounts. No advice here; we’re really on our own to figure out what’s real and trustworthy nowadays. At least we have parody videos to keep us warm at night.

3. Communi-grator

I’m not always mad when brands get involved in a cultural phenomenon. In this instance, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, Le Creuset came out with a line of kitchen items for Trekkies, many of whom are ancient enough to afford them.

While I personally covet the shuttlecraft casserole dish, the cheese grater ‘communi-grator’ pun won my Wordpecker heart. If you’re a fellow Trekkie, hide your credit card and check out the collection.

4. Winnebago Man

A friend recently shared a clip from a video I hadn’t seen in a few years. I think I first saw it on Tumblr a good decade ago. Shot in the ‘80s, it features outtakes of a salesman being extremely frustrated by his inability to remember his lines for an RV commercial. Each take gets funnier and he drops more and more f-bombs. Imagine working with this guy.

I did a little digging into the video’s origins and found one titled ‘The Definitive Winnebago Man’ (a killer phrase). Of course that’s what he’s called. It’s perfect. Next to that, YouTube served me a documentary about this man, whose real name is Jack Rebney. I haven’t watched it yet but I definitely plan on it. Sometimes algorithms are all right.

The description for the documentary mentions that people used to pass around VHS tapes of Winnebago Man. He was a meme before there were memes. A true king.

5. Slop dropper

If you’re a colleague and you do this, know three things:

1. I hate it every time

2. I’m not alone

3. You need to stop

See also: meat proxy, a terrific term for coworkers who forward AI results or copy without vetting it first.

6. Nut cuttin’ time down on the ranch

If you’ve lived in Colorado, then you likely know Kyle Clark, host of Next With Kyle Clark on 9 News Denver. Clark used the phase ‘nut cuttin’ time down on the ranch’ on air and a viewer got the phrase banned from the show. Here’s Clark decidedly not repeating the phrase over and over again in response:

7. Beaver conflict resolution technician

Here’s a fun follow-up phrase: I recently wrote about a Beaver Management Officer job, and Wordpecker reader Charlie posted a link to this job:

I had no idea beaver lovers had such a deep bench of career options. Maybe my pivot away from marketing will involve getting paid $22-25/hour to argue with beavers.

Asshole bird of the month: September 2026

If you’re new here, ABOTM is an occasional Wordpecker feature, sort of like Employee of the Month, but centered around a feathered friend being a dick. All shared with love, because if you know birds, you understand that that’s just how they are and we love them for it.

Meet this baby crane with a discerning palate who tossed food at his rehabber because he prefers a different food. Look at that judgmental stare!

Follow and support their Patreon and keep this baby fed!!!

Goodpecker

Goodpecker is a new Wordpecker feature where we look for the good and dive into concrete ways for us to give back.

For this edition, I am excited to have TWO good things to share!

1. My friend Lee’s book, The Politics of Lonely: Why is friendship so hard? is out in the wild! Get yourself a copy! Mine is already on its way to my house. If you’re lucky enough to be Canadian, you can buy directly from the author here.

2. My pal and occasional partner in Zoom-call crime Mike just launched a fund in honor of his wife Jennifer, whom we lost to pancreatic cancer earlier this year. Each quarter, the Jennifer Keck Morrow Everyday Kindness Fund will run a campaign centered around an important date in the life of Jennifer's family. The first campaign will get books into kids’ homes—a perfect way to celebrate Jennifer, who was a teacher. If you need some good works to look forward to, sign up for email updates so you won’t miss a quarterly chance to spread everyday kindness around. And please consider donating!

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

It’s getting so close to fall weather where I live. I can feel the basic bitch in me rising as the urge to wear sweaters and boots and sip PSLs grows with every passing hour. I’m so ready for the end of slimy air. Candy corn season is almost upon us!

In this edition of Wordpecker, we have heroic honkers, a pleasing rhyme, sentient hoppers, and more. Let’s get to it!

1. Quake Lake

We love a good rhyming phrase with a pleasing Q sound! I’m surprised I’d never heard of this event; I’ve been to Yellowstone enough times where I should have encountered Quake Lake.

Officially called Earthquake Lake, it’s named for what created it: an earthquake along the Madison River in Wyoming.

Just before midnight on August 17, 1959, an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale created a landslide that brought 80 million tons of rock traveling at 100 mph down the mountain, blocking the Madison River in less than a minute.

Sadly, 28 people died as a result of the landslide. The speed of this event is hard for the human mind to comprehend. Even today, you can still see the treetops that were flooded in minutes.

2. Goosey

GOOSEY!

That’s what I yell every time I think of this story of how a four-month-old goose named Goosey alerted their family of a fire in their barn. Thanks to Goosey’s heroic (and eerily human-like) honking, the family extinguished the fire and all of the animals in the barn survived. GOOSEY!!!!!

Here’s a heartwarming video of Goosey and his family.

Let’s bring back ringtones and add Goosey’s alarm honk to our work email accounts.

3. Geophagy

The next time you want to tell someone to eat dirt, fancy it up with this scientific word for that behavior. I came across this geophagy while reading a study of African grey behavior in the wild. As one does.

Longtime readers know my family shares a home with a 36-year-old Congo African grey parrot named Cuppy, whom we adopted from a friend a decade ago.

While for centuries, greys have been snatched from their native habitat in Africa and raised as pets, very little is known about their behavior in the wild. This is in large part because the Congo is an extremely difficult place to travel. Congo African greys are also elusive creatures; like many birds, they’re wired for safety and don’t enjoy being observed. We know they nest in cavities in trees—which explains Cuppy’s need to chew wood, and books, and puzzle pieces, and my daughter’s laundry basket.

Every once in a while, I’ll check to see if new research on greys exists.

While the study I read wasn’t about geophagy specifically, it does mention this behavior in greys and other parrots, who will fly to specific regions to eat mineral-rich soil to gain nutrients. The study found that greys will regularly leave their forest habitat to feed in nearby clearings, particularly during the dry season, making the argument that preserving these habitats is essential to the survival of the species.

If you’re an etymology nerd like me, you’ll note that ‘geo’ = earth and ‘phagy’ = eating. In humans, geophagy is called pica.

While reading this study, I also learned that in 2025, the Democratic Republic of the Congo officially outlawed taking African greys for the pet trade. Progress!

4. House burping

THIS IS JUST AIRING OUT YOUR HOUSE. EVERYTHING DOESN’T NEED TO BE A TREND!

Earlier this year, a thing started on TikTok where people started opening their windows to air out the house, noting that this is known as Lüften in Germany. Somehow the phrase house burping caught on here in the states, and I guess we’re running with it.

I did get to add a new banger to my collection of headlines, at least.

5. Gros Michel

Did you know we eat substandard bananas now? We could be living in paradise but instead we have explosive-diarrhea lettuce, homicidal blueberries, and lame-ass bananas. What a time to be alive.

Until the 1950s, the Gros Michel banana was the predominant variety sold to consumers. Oops; I buried the lede here: If you’re French-illiterate like me, you’ll be delighted to learn that Gros Michel translates to “Big Mike.”

Today, we mostly consume the Cavendish variety of banana. I had no idea we were missing out on banana glory and would love to do a side-by-side taste test. This writer did just that in a piece for Epicurious, which also contains the hilarious phrase banana corporations.

Here’s where we get to the dark side of Cavendish banana ubiquity: Corporate malfeasance:

In 1954, the United Fruit Company (which became Chiquita in 1984) even instigated an overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government.

Today, Cavendish bananas are monocropped, which is terrible for the soil and water. ::Nods in Midwestern corn sweat:: It’s almost like unregulated capitalism is a scourge on both humanity and the planet.

6. Smart toilet

I’ve been watching The Last of Us with my son and his boyfriend over at their place this summer. The pilot for that show is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen.

We don’t have the ad-free version of HBO, so on one of our watch days, we were forced to endure the unintentional comedy that is ads for a Kohler smart toilet. In one version, a woman walks through a city in a black designer dress and shoes, ultimately arriving on a rooftop where what is presumably the elegant toilet version of her awaits. Here’s the ad, if you’re curious and also need a good laugh.

The way I howled at “uncover uncommon beauty.” Look, I know everybody poops, but if I were friends with this person, I’d never let them live it down.

I for one prefer my toilets dumb. There are some things that need to stay between a person’s toilet and them, and I’d rather not contemplate a toilet data breach.

I’m curious to know what the toilet version of you would look like? What features would it offer? I think I’m a basic Kohler, but not, like, a new-money tech billionaire Kohler.

Leave a comment

Goodpecker

As an antidote to the horrors or modern existence, I wanted to periodically share some good things happening and highlight some organizations and groups doing good work.

Shoutout to a remote Midwestern nonprofit

As a marketing copywriter, I’m a big fan of an engaging newsletter. As a consumer, I think that very few organizations do them well. If you’re into conservation and birds specifically, I’d like to suggest the Friends of Whitefish Point. This Northern Michigan conservation nonprofit is situated along a crucial route for migrating owls in the Upper Peninsula region. Their newsletters feature charming updates about owl banding research, an awesome-sounding event called Moth Night, and updates on specific owls passing through the area.

They also have a killer AI statement:

This website is an AI free zone. All content is written by 100% real people and the occasional owl. Should you find a mistake, rest assured that it was made by the owl.

Subscribe and donate if you’re able!

Hometown Hero(es)

The leadership in my town got suckered into buying Flock cameras. Now our town square has six of these infernal machines monitoring everyone, and people of every political leaning are mad as hell about it. This week, someone put a pink sticker over one of the camera lenses.

Margaret Killjoy argues in this essay that “public support for criminal activity is a primary driver of social change.” I think people are sick of the tech oligarchy, of every technology sucking, and of having our data monitored, harvested, sold, and regularly stolen in data breaches. Anyway, shoutout to my local homie for making good trouble.

That’s it for this edition. Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This Week in Phraseology

Hello there! Are you enjoying this wildfire smoke diarrhea lettuce Jimothy Wicker summer?

“Wicker, you ask? What do you mean?”

If you haven’t seen the trailer for the upcoming Wicker movie (tagline: A hard man is good to find), do that immediately so you can enjoy the memes flying around. I stand by my assertion that I will see anything Olivia Colman stars in, especially if it involves Alexander Skarsgård being weird AF. Now you know the references!

Not IKEA rolling out a brilliant social post to go with the film:

OK enough memes, we have some new words and phrases to enjoy. This week, we have rodent gigs, annoying tech, expansive art projects, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. OnlyMarms

For nearly 65 years, the National Science Foundation has funded the study of marmots in the Rocky Mountains. As the Trump-Vance administration has slashed billions of dollars in science funding over the last year, the grant to study marmots was terminated. News flash: Marmots are woke! Budget cuts finally came for the furries!

In response, scientists at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL)—which you may know from their annual Fat Marmot Week event—got even more creative. UCLA professor Daniel Blumstein hatched the idea for an OnlyFans account, but for marmots. I mean, why not? We live in the Jimothy era, where anything is possible through small mammals.

And that’s how we arrived at OnlyMarms, an OnlyFans account but for science. Run by grad student Emily Ranky, OnlyMarms offers “unfiltered yellow-bellied content from the Rockies” and pics of marmots with cute names like Staple, Pawprint, and Cabinet. The account is free to view and accepts donations; so far, they’ve raised around $6K!

If you’d like to directly support RMBL marmot research, make a donation here:

Support cute little mammals! Do it!

To keep tabs on this short-sighted gutting of scientific research on largely ideological grounds, follow and support Unbreaking.org. They have a medical research funding timeline tracking the administration’s actions and the pushback against them, in the hope that we can restore what’s being destroyed. (Disclosure: I’m a copy editor at Unbreaking, which is an all-volunteer project.)

2. Beaver management officer

We are on a small mammal kick here at Wordpecker! A brief break from covering birds—but don’t worry, I’ll get back to them in a bit. We love a weird job here, and this one is no exception. If you’re still 12 years old inside like me, this one’s for you.

Wild beavers have been extinct in Scotland for 400 years, until the first wild-born kits arrived there this year as part of a rewilding project between the government and a nonprofit, known as the National Beaver Strategy (lol).

This BBC piece quotes beaver management officer Tobias Leask on the project:

“These beaver kits symbolise a wildlife success story four centuries in the making, and how nature can recover when we give it a chance.

“Seeing them for the first time is something I’ll never forget. It was one of those rare moments when you realise you’re witnessing history.”

I sincerely hope Mr. Leask has Beaver Management Officer in his LinkedIn profile headline.

3. Dickovers

I’m just nerdy enough to regularly read Cory Doctorow, author of the excellent book Enshittification, but not quiiiite nerdy enough to follow tech blogger/podcaster John Gruber. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, congratulations, you’re a cool, normal human.

Anyway, reading Doctorow is how I discovered Dickovers, a term coined this year by Gruber. What is a dickover? Get ready for a good hate-read, because I promise you already know what they are:

dickover n. : a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept “cookies”, subscribe to a newsletter, install the website’s mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn’t give two shits about.

This is a good word! I hope it catches on and I hope Gruber writes a bestselling book about dickovers like Doctorow did about enshittification.

With most tech experiences curdling and turning sour these days, one thing I can say is that this is a prime era for tech optimists to step in—a la Mamdani in NYC for good government—and start making GOOD user experiences and a GOOD, non-exploitative search engine (I switched to StartPage and never looked back). I recommend reading this entry from Cory Doctorow about how to block dickovers. Fly! Be free!

4. Feather Atlas

At Wordpecker, we’ll never pivot to video but we WILL pivot to birds! Artist recently wrote about a federal feather atlas and I had to know more.

Turns out the Feather Atlas is a charmingly dated US Fish and Wildlife Service portal where, after about 20 clicks or so, you can view images of feathers archived in their database. Here are some scans of tail feathers from an Anna’s Hummingbird!!!

If you find a random bird feather you can try to ID it through the Feather Atlas, too. Science is cool! So are archives!

5. Watts Towers

While reading about the fascinating life and evocative work of artist Betye Saar in her obituary, I learned that she found inspiration for her assemblage art in the work of Simon Rodia. An Italian immigrant who came to the US in 1921, Rodia spent decades working on the Watts Towers mosaic sculptures in the L.A. neighborhood where Saar was born. Today the Watts Towers Art Center exists to educate and preserve the art and culture of the towers themselves and the neighborhood that has sustained them for decades.

It’s worth noting that Betye Saar, who was probably best known for her “found object” assemblages depicting Aunt Jemima armed with guns and grenades, made and exhibited her work for her entire adult life until her passing at age 99. In this era of mass technological theft and devaluing of art, it’s so important to remember to keep creating no matter what. The world needs artists and writers and the world needs our art. Keep going. Keep making.

6. Jerry’s Map

This entry pairs well with the Watts Towers project, because it’s a one-of-a-kind creation decades in the making. In the early 1960s, while bored at his job, Jerry Gretzinger started making a physical map of an imaginary city. He worked on the map for 20 years and stored it in the attic until his son discovered it, inspiring Jerry to revisit the project.

Today, “The Map” is a two-dimensional world comprised of over 4,000 individual panels made with “acrylic, marker, colored pencil, ink, collage, and inkjet print on heavy paper” that can be assembled into a circle guided by the cardinal directions. To create the map, Gretzinger started using a customized deck of cards as a random-number generator to dictate what to work on next, along with a list of guiding principles for how the work progresses.

Watch Gretzinger work on a map section using his card deck:

You really have to see the assembled images to get an idea of the scope and wonder of this project. Gretzinger blogged about the map for years, and today there’s an active subreddit called Jerry Mapping devoted to mapmaking in this style. What a great example of making art because you have to. Thanks to Wordpecker reader Tonya for sending this one in!

Bonus Nugget

Someone made a billboard for a fake LLM chatbot and is answering the queries it gets himself. Mad I didn’t think of this; it’s totally a spite art project I’d love to do:

That’s it for this week. Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

What a summer we’re having, what with the unhealthy air and the risky greens. I just wanna gorge myself on summer berries without spending weeks on the toilet, okay? It’s almost as if cutting funding for federal food safety monitoring and allowing megacorps to monopolize huge portions of our food supply are creating a perfect explosive diarrhea storm. Who could have predicted this, besides journalists and public health professionals and anyone with eyes and ears and a functioning brain?

This summer is not all bad; we still have new words and phrases. In this edition of Wordpecker, we have cryptid joy, hot diarrhea lettuce summer, and the chance to name an inanimate object. This is going to be a meme-rich edition, so buckle up.

Let’s get to it!

1. Jimothy

Since I last updated Wordpecker, a round boi in Seattle named Jimothy has captured our collective hearts. If you aren’t as chronically online as I am and have no idea what I’m talking about, an extremely cute Seattle raccoon with a congenital condition called “short spine syndrome” went viral this month.

Here’s the Instagram post that started it all.

Almost immediately, a fast-and-furious flurry of memes and art began. This is the good side of the internet, and why I will likely never completely quit social media. Here are some of my faves:

One of the things I love most about this story is how Seattleites have been keeping an eye out for Jimothy since he was a baby. Here’s a post showing video footage of tiny Jimothy.

2. Yuppie chow

wrote a powerful essay called “The Same Lettuce Is Sold at Whole Foods for Eight Dollars and at Taco Bell for One” about how our food systems have been co-opted by corporations that fool consumers into paying more for perceived value.

It took less than a quarter century to turn a chore people had done for themselves since Egypt, rinse a leaf and tear it, into an aisle. Upscale restaurants had served loose young greens under the French word mesclun, and the growers who supplied them, watching what a French word did to the price, took to calling the product yuppie chow among themselves, the industry’s private name for the thing it sells you as virtue.

Here’s a deep-dive paper (.PDF) into the evolution of yuppie chow.

3. MAHA Blast

Here is a very good joke, courtesy of longtime Wordpecker reader Randal:

4. Big Salad

I often enjoy this joke about monopolies with the power to crush the little guy. Big Salad showed up on an Instagram post by Wired for an article about Taylor Farms, a company whose alleged negligence may or may not be causing thousands of Americans to forcefully shit ourselves for weeks. Huge props to the Wired graphic designer and copy editor for working in this phrase as a fake article category:

According to the article, Taylor Farms “donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.” This seems fine.

5. Large hot Lisa

When we stopped in our local bookstore this weekend, I heard a barista call out “LARGE HOT LISA!” which was very confusing until I learned they name a coffee drink after their employees. Did I make a “large hot Toni” joke while I was there, mortifying one of my kids in the process? Probably.

6. Mowby Dick

We live on a half-acre lot with so much dumb grass. So much. So dumb. We are not landed gentry! Kentucky bluegrass is non-native! She doesn’t even go here! It takes forever to mow, and so does planting and tending the native perennial gardens we’d prefer to grow. Long story short: my husband and our son’s boyfriend set up our new robot lawn mower. I for one welcome our new robot lawnmower overlord. It’s honestly kind of cool; it has a camera so you can follow its progress while making OM NOM NOM sounds.

Because we love punny names for inanimate objects here at Wordpecker, I’ve decided this beast needs a name. So far I’ve proposed Mowby Dick and Taylor Snips. What would you name it?

Leave a comment

If we choose your name, the winner will get a Wordpecker sticker in the mail! (Promises, promises, I know.) I owe so many of you paid subscribers stickers, but one of my biggest executive functioning hurdles is mailing stuff. So yeah. They’re coming!

Some punny names for inanimate objects from previous editions:

• Snow plows

• Chicago snow plows

• Library carts

• Pet fish

Speaking of mailing stuff, I have a question for you:

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

The phrase “explosive diarrhea” is objectively pretty great, but seeing it so often during the current cyclosporaisis parasite outbreak is not good for ye olde mental health. I did like this variation, which nicely sums up 2026 overall:

Thankfully, I’m all out of diarrhea-related phrases. I just don’t have it in me to think about this anymore. I’m emptied out. The jokes have run dry. (I’m going to stop now.)

This week, we have some bird stuff, an admirable use of adjectives, a big baby showing Tasmania who’s boss, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Selfish AI

Loved this piece by game and app developer Josh Moody titled How to Passive-Aggressively Shame People Who Use LLMs Selfishly, e.g., “in ways that end up making more work for others.” Wow, imagine that. As a marketing copywriter and editor who’s had to hack through my share of AI slop with a machete, fruitlessly trying to reshape it before giving up and just rewriting, I can relate.

The post is nuanced, noting that many people who use AI selfishly (or otherwise) are under tremendous work-related pressure for various reasons. Which is true!

But the post is a setup for his list of emoji reactions to selfish AI, including:

• Passive aggressive emojis - 🏺Amphora (Ancient Greek vase): I randomly wanted to remind you of the incredible art humanity produced with their bare hands thousands of years ago

• Fully aggressive emojis - 🩼 Crutch: You aren’t capable of writing even the most basic of messages without help

• Positive emojis - 🧠 Brain: a human brain was used

Click to see all the emoji reacts.

2. Scroogly

Our family made up this word to describe a normal budgie feather molting phase that looks both mildly pitiful and also extremely cute. When this happens, we all stand around enthusiastically admiring how scroogly our feathered friends look. Here are a couple of photos to see what this looks like:

But do they let us give them scritches to get some relief? No, they do not!

3. Giant, ugly, noisy, smelly altars to industrial-scale hostile architecture

Once again, sociologist, author, and documentary filmmaker Tressie McMillan Cottom offers brilliant commentary on our era. Here, she’s writing about data centers, which many Americans on both sides of the aisle hate. In fact, that’s the opener to her opinion piece: “Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them.”

According to polling by Heatmap News, more than half of all Americans support a national ban on data centers. The public seems to agree that data centers are giant, ugly, noisy, smelly altars to industrial-scale hostile architecture. In our virulently partisan country, this constitutes a rare show of consensus.

McMillan Cottom sees this consensus and the grassroots organizing around it as an opportunity for the Democratic party to unite around, but wisely notes that what the party will actually do is anyone’s guess.

BTW if you’re not familiar with this concept, I wrote about hostile architecture a while back. It’s a design practice meant to keep certain community members away, including teens, unhoused folks, and those dreaded poors. Examples include removing park benches to prevent lingering (or sleeping) and creating dead-end cul-de-sacs to wall off affluent enclaves. The downside is broader than the exclusionary band-aid fix it seeks to address, making spaces hostile to the entire community.

4. Neil the Seal

NEIL!!! I yell his name every time he crosses my feed, making me a delightful housemate. But we simply mustn’t let Diarrhea Parasite Summer overshadow Neil the Seal’s time in the sun. If you’re not familiar, Neil the Seal is a beloved six-year-old, one-ton elephant seal who shows up in Tasmania a couple of times a year, starts fights with traffic barriers and parked cars, and lays around blocking traffic. He’s still young and nowhere near his full size! I can’t wait to see what Neil gets up to next.

Here are TikTok and YouTube accounts that follow Neil’s antics. This TikTok of Neil confronting a parked van is captioned “unafraid, unapologetic, ungovernable.” I LOVE HIM.

5. Passerculus sandwichensis

We’ve covered weird bird names here before, from the Latin to the English to the colloquial. The bar-tailed godwit. The swamp candle. The butter butt. The drab-breasted bamboo tyrant. Really, I could do one of these a week and coast on that bit for a year or more.

When I saw the Latin name for the Savannah Sparrow had the word sandwich in it, I had to know more.

They’re very cute, with distinctive yellow eyeliner - here’s one in a bit of a skroogs mode:

Here’s a more Insta-worthy look:

Unfortunately, the backstory for the name isn’t as fun as the name itself. Turns out Savannah Sparrows do not enjoy a good PB&J or grabbing Subway off the interstate.

They were first noted by a naturalist in what is now Prince William Sound in Alaska, which was originally named Sandwich Sound, which was named for the Earl of Sandwich, who was named for the town of Sandwich, in Kent. Alas, according to Wikipedia, sandwich means “market town on sandy soil,” not “assuming the Italian stance at Al’s Beef.”

That’s a lot of sandwiches, and now I’m hungry so I’m going to sign off. See you next time, probably with more weird bird stuff.

In the meantime, tell me about your favorite sandwich:

Leave a comment

Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Hello there! It’s great to be back in the Wordpecker saddle (branch? hollow?) again, writing to you. I was on the road for a couple of weeks in Colorado for work and then New Mexico for a family vacation. Per our gamer kids’ request, we hit up some game shops in Albuquerque and we are now a Catan family. Here’s live footage of one of our games.

And here’s a crappy and terrible sunset view from my friend’s balcony:

The food is also repulsive: Hand-made tortillas of your dreams served with your red and green chile enchilada sauce? Why???

OK enough sarcasm. I gathered some phrases for you from my travels. Let’s get to it!

1. Freak for the creek

Spotted this phrase on a bumper sticker while driving through Denver. I thought maybe it was part of a local org, movement, or music venue. Sadly, I only found stickers in Etsy and Redbubble shops. This one for the Door County Land Trust kind of rules, or maybe I just really like Sandhill Cranes.

I do think more conservation orgs need to own this phrase. cc: Prairie Rivers Network. I briefly tried conjuring a similar rhyme for rivers (shiver/quiver for the river, mehhh), but none are as good as freak for the creek. Good thing I don’t work in marketing!1

2. Injection Room

👎🏻 Here’s a trend to dislike 👎🏻: Shady-looking businesses centered around letting strangers with questionable credentials (gonna guess they’re not sexy nurses) inject elixirs with unproven benefits into your body. I’m re-watching Fringe and this setup has “horrifying opening scene” written all over it.

Here’s a crappy photo of a crappy AI logo for Injection Room, taken from the passenger seat as we drove past:

3. McGristle

A McDonald’s in New Mexico offered steak as a side with pancakes on the breakfast menu. I had never seen steak on a McDonald’s menu! My husband immediately dubbed it the McGristle. He should work in marketing, tbh2.

4. Burrito Brigade

We didn’t make it up to Santa Fe on this trip, but I learned of this mutual aid org in a great and hopeful interview with Garrett Bucks in Culture Study called How to Declare Your Interdependence.

Here’s an excerpt, where Bucks talks about a cultural vibe shift he’s seeing where people are turning toward each other:

In the interview, Bucks mentions The Burrito Brigade, a mutual aid group that distributes free burritos, drinks, and needed supplies to people who are unhoused or food insecure in Santa Fe. Boy, do I ever love a catchy name for an org! I should work in marketing3.

Established as an alternative to nonprofits and government aid, mutual aid groups pool resources for the benefit of communities. These groups can take many forms and offer many different types of aid to communities, from freedges like The Love Fridge Chicago to delivery services like the Burrito Brigade to funds for trans people to legally change their names.

Do some good today: here’s a link to buy some burritos for some Santa Fe neighbors. And here’s a map of mutual aid groups around the U.S. and Canada so you can find a local group to support, too.

5. Creamland

I’ve argued for a while that ad and marketing agencies need to have at least one 12-year-old on retainer for product development purposes. This New Mexico dairy brand bears that out.

6. Casino Asshole

Our Airbnb was mere blocks away from Cocina Azúl, aka Blue Kitchen, which looked fantastic. Sadly, we never got to eat there because there was always a line out the door. When texting with the family about going there for dinner, my phone kept autocorrecting the restaurant name to Casino Asshole. Tim Apple, what is your deal???

Encounter any funny autocorrect mishaps lately? Share yours in the comments:

Leave a comment

7. Southwestern bitch

I told my husband I couldn’t decide whether I’m a Midwestern bitch or a Southwestern bitch, and instead of saying “Why not both?” he said, “You’ve been a Southwestern bitch ever since I’ve known you! Bright blue walls! Terra cotta tile! That tin mirror thing you love!” and wow, it felt so good to be seen.

8. Cookie ATM

Our Airbnb was in a great little neighborhood with lots of eateries within walking distance. Golden Crown Panederia was one of them, and they had a cookie ATM by the front entrance!!!!

I love a crispy cookie, so New Mexican biscochitos—New Mexico’s official state cookie—are right up my alley. In fact, several went right into my stomach on this trip.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Hello! I have some phrases for you! It’s been a minute but I am back. I’ve also been collecting fun words and phrases in the background this entire time, as one does.

In this edition, we have some interesting brand choices, lonely bears, and hyper-local feasts. Also, I got you some memes.

Let’s get to it!

1. Junk Thirsty

I saw this brand name (yes, it is an actual company) on a sign by the highway, which featured a raccoon hanging from the AI-designed logo. But it was the unfortunate double entendre that stood out for me. This is why you need marketers on your team, folks!

So I went to the website and

They have to know, right? Is this where the Wordpecker investigative reporting division needs to kick in, where I call them to ask? I will also have to ask how many photos of junk they have received.

Also, FAQs does not have an apostrophe. See my earlier note about hiring marketers.

2. Pizzly bears

Alex Falcone is a comedian who posts extremely Wordpecker-coded video series like “Is it a scam? Yep!” Speaking of Wordpecker-coded, he also writes an entertaining Fun Fact Friday newsletter.

In this Insta video, Falcone shares about Pizzlies (polar-grizzly hybrid bears):

Huge bonus points for the phrase “zoo perverts.” Here’s the Fun Fact Friday newsletter about hybrids.

3. PoopCheck

I keep a running Google doc each year for words and phrases to write about, with links, attribution, and assorted notes. My comment for this word read, “I don’t even know where to begin writing about this one, LOL.”

Sadly, this company makes sense if you’re unfortunate enough to be aware of certain healthmaxxer behaviors from the likes of Tim Ferris or Brian Johnson. Oh, you’re not? I am sorry for what I’m about to do to you.

The Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill podcasts recently teamed up to review The 4-Hour Body book by Tim Ferris. At one point in the book, Ferris reveals that he started weighing his poops, which led to a lot of very funny speculation on the logistics of how one goes about such a thing. Good thing this man already does lots of squats at the gym, and (book spoiler) at restaurants before eating! So yes, there is a certain type of health-obsessed, death-fearing, ever-optimizer who will pay to test every bodily metric possible to avoid feeling their feelings and facing their own mortality.

See also: this LinkedIn post that I had to log in to verify was real; you’re welcome for my great sacrifice:

If you’re not familiar with Bryan Johnson, he’s the dude who was transfusing his teenage son’s blood plasma into himself in an effort to look and feel younger. Super normal, emotionally healthy behavior! As with most billionaires and CEOs I’m sure he has plenty of trusted friends in his orbit to tell him it’s not even working! Speaking of emotionally healthy behavior, Johnson (whose LinkedIn header image reads “DON’T DIE”) also ::checks notes:: boasted about his girlfriend’s vagina online, ranking it among “the top 1% of all vaginas” based on other, totally unnecessary testing methods. Excuse me: I wasn’t aware we were being ranked???

All of this backstory brings us to PoopCheck, which I learned of in a 404 Media piece by Jason Koebler titled (I am not joking):

. . . a headline I immediately added to my ongoing list of great headlines.

Honestly, you don’t need to read the full piece to understand the weirdness and ethical chicanery going on here. Uh, bottom line: Don’t trust your private health data to an app, kids! But it’s still worth a read—404 Media does great work covering the tech world, and it’s such weird and apt commentary on our current era.

4. Food forest

This phrase DELIGHTS me, and I think we can all use something wholesome and positive right now, no? I recently learned that a local nonprofit started a food forest a couple of miles from my home. Unfortunately, their site doesn’t explain what a food forest is, but I think it’s kind of self-explanatory.

Project Food Forest defines a food forest as:

Also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and out.

The food forest in my town is on five acres and I’m really excited to see how it evolves.

Bonus Nuggets

1. Why do so many AI company logos look like buttholes?

No idea. Who could even begin to guess? Anyway, this article goes deep into it.

2. Memes that made me LOL recently

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.

This week in phraseology

I’m writing to you from paradise, aka spring in the Midwest. Windows are open 24/7, trees are flowering, birds are singing, daffodils, tulips, and trillium are blooming, and bunnies and groundhogs are looking cute while being destructive—a superpower if ever there was one.

I even saw two of our resident wild turkeys having sex on my neighbors’ lawn, while a third appeared to cheer them on. A fourth if you count me saying “hell yeah” as I coasted by in my Subaru.

Incidentally, did you know groundhogs could climb fences? I didn’t until this week:

But enough bragging about inhabiting the only good time of year to live here. You came here for unique words and phrases, and I’ve got some good ones for you. This week, we have geometric idiocracy, a cargo crime fighter, a testicular repast literally nobody asked for, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Jeffermation

Jeff Goldblum being charmingly egocentric is always a balm.

You should be able to click play on the web version of this edition without having to go to Instagram, but for those without an IG account, here’s a play-by-play:

We start with Goldblum talking to himself in a handheld mirror:

“Uh, Here’s a Jeffermation for you.

(Repeats for emphasis) A Jeffermation.

Uh, it goes like this: I am on fire.”

Then the camera pans away to show off his glorious floral print shirt, as he adds:

“And: Who’s got marshmallows?” 🔥

It’s just such a Jeff Goldblum thing to do. Like this:

I will forever be mad that Netflix cancelled the Greek mythology-themed series KAOS after just one season. Casting Goldblum as Zeus, aka Zaddy, was brilliant and the writing, casting, and cinematography were so good.

2. Food tornado

Jessica Knurick is a popular health and nutrition influencer who has a PhD in nutrition science. She recently shared a video about RFK Jr. inverting the food pyramid—a government model that hasn’t been a thing since 2005.

So, flipping the dormant food pyramid = busywork that appears like actual work and also has no tangible meaning or benefit to the public. Got it.

In this video, Dr. Knurick shares why inverting the food pyramid an empty-calorie move, adding that she heard someone call it the food tornado. The whole video is great and worth a watch to see her call out Kennedy’s BS.

3. Romanian Rollover

TV writer Brian Grubb at Type Click Type also enjoys writing about heists - a great Venn diagram of interests.

While covering the recent Kit Kat bar heist in Europe, Grubb linked to this fascinating article about Mike Dawber, the UK’s leading detective covering cargo crime (both a great phrase and a TV show I would absolutely watch if someone made it):

The latest, and most audacious, type of cargo theft is known, somewhat dubiously, as the “Romanian rollover,” in which criminals from eastern Europe target trucks while they’re on the move. The pursuers climb on to their own bonnets and break into the truck ahead while on the motorway; boxes are tossed back at speeds of more than 50mph. Dawber showed me a video of one such operation: I watched as two men climbed out of the sunroof of an SUV that was tailgating a truck, one holding on to the others’ legs as he broke into the truck’s rear door ahead.

Somebody PLEASE make this TV show.

4. Nurdles (revisited)

This is the first time I’ve repeated a word for this project! The first time I covered nurdle back in 2023, we learned it’s a word used to describe “a wave-shaped blob of toothpaste.”

But a recent newsletter from the American Bird Conservancy shared that nurdles are tiny plastic pellets used to build larger products such as phone cases or food containers. When nurdles are accidentally or intentionally dumped into the water supply, wild birds can mistake them for food, with predictably devastating consequences. There is legislation making its way through the least functional Congress ever to prohibit plastic pellet discharge. Until then, we’re stuck with trusting companies to do the right thing.

We know how well that goes - there’s very recent history about corporate pollution in multiple places in the U.S. The Cuyahoga River used to regularly catch fire, FFS! Then we passed the Clean Water Act, which stopped companies from polluting on that scale.

Here’s another great example of what’s possible through citizen action that spurs legislation:

5. Sewer socialism

I like this phrase quite a bit because it’s both catchy and manages to spin a humble necessity into something immediately recognizable as a positive.

I shared this post summarizing Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days in office as mayor of New York City, commenting that it sounds disgusting and terrible.

Affordable living? Universal childcare? Faster buses? What fresh hell is this?

I’d just read Cory Doctorow mention the phrase sewer socialism in a recent newsletter arguing that government austerity—aka starving government services—breeds fascism.

The piece mentions Mamdani, and got me curious about what that phrase meant:

Everywhere we turn, political leaders are rejecting generations of failed austerity in favor of "sewer socialism" – the idea that you get people to trust their government by earning that trust. Zohran Mamdani is fixing 100,000 potholes in the first 100 days, despite the multi-billion dollar deficit that outgoing Mayor Eric Adams created by "running the city like a business."

Essentially, sewer socialism describes how improving the everyday lives of people welcomes them into your politics. And it started in the Midwest—in Milwaukee!

Eric Blanc at Labor Politics wrote a detailed history of the origins of sewer socialism in Cream City:

It was easy to play with “revolutionary phrases,” but Berger noted that this did not do much to move workers closer to socialism. While it was important to continue propagating the big ideas of socialism, what America’s leftists needed above all was “concrete political achievements, not theoretical treatises ... less mouth-work, more footwork.”

Outside of the furthest extremes, people don’t want performative politics and lip service; they want evidence that their lives will be measurably better if they vote for you. I’d love to see more mainstream Democrats understand this, or get voted out in favor of progressive leaders who enact policies that actually benefit the people.

6. Man Cereal

What.

The best reply to this was: “Oh yeah? Explain to me what's in these Grape Nuts I've been eating then???”

Runner-up: “Up til now I've had to dip pop tarts in barbecue rub while polishing a replica sword.”

Here are two reviews of Man Cereal, because I love you:

1. I Tried ‘Man Cereal’—and Asked Dietitians for Their Thoughts. Things Got Ugly. - Men’s Health

2. I’m a 40-year-old woman. So why did I spend a week eating Man Cereal? - Yahoo!life

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Did you watch the NASA mission splashdown on Friday? I did, with my heart in my throat, because I desperately needed those humans to be safe. I know I’m not the only one who felt this way. In this chaotic era where all of the wrong people are in charge and also bent on destruction so they can juice the stock market and make insider bets on prediction markets, seeing a wholesome, positive story about scientific potential was a balm and a source of deep joy. To continue those good vibes, this week features more than one NASA-themed phrase. Sorry not sorry to the space mission haters.

In other news, I left the house! In hard pants! Twice! First to see Project Hail Mary and then Florence + The Machine. A+ cathartic, art-filled weekending with no small amount of crying. Highly recommend.

1. Calculighter

You really have to pay attention to random stuff you see online because AI makes it harder to tell artificial creations from reality. (I’m looking at you, cute pet videos.) When I saw a meme about the Casio Calculighter1, (click to see a pic of it in action) which seemed so stupidly implausible to me, I had to investigate.

Turns out this product really existed. Keith Houston, author of an ode to calculators called Empire of the Sum (chef’s kiss), shares that Casio’s first product was a yubiwa pipe, a ring with a cigarette holder attached to it. Funding from sales of that product allowed them to create other products, including calculators. According to Houston, from this standpoint, the Casio QL-10 Calculighter made sense:

Had this been any other calculator company, it would be have been entirely possible to deride the QL-10 as ’80s excess gone mad. But Casio alone could claim method in its madness, because it had got started not with electronic instruments, as had Hewlett-Packard; nor with geophysical surveying equipment, like Texas Instruments; nor cameras, like Canon; but rather, with the humble yubiwa cigarette holder. For Casio, the QL-10 was a homecoming.

We need more weird product mashups like this. Everyone loves a multi-tool!

2. Cassette futurism

This phrase evokes a beloved aesthetic that I’ve long enjoyed as a sci-fi fan but could never quite articulate. Culture, gaming, and TV/movie writer wrote an ode to cassette futurism that examines whether it’s an antidote to digital burnout. He describes the vibe here:

Cassette futurism is a retro-futuristic aesthetic from around 1970-1985, and is a subgenre of sci-fi that essentially envisions a future through utilitarian, analogue technology. Think tech that was available in that time period: bulky computers, cassette tapes, CRT monitors, physical buttons, VHS/Beta systems, floppy disks, reel-to-reel tapes, Polaroids, dot matrix printers, microcomputers, and so on.

Star Wars—including my beloved Andor—and Star Trek are examples that immediately come to mind, along with the movies Alien and Blade Runner. Even though these stories depict fictional worlds or futures, there’s something comforting about not just the retro feel but the tactile nature of the tech. As Piggott notes in his essay, in the world of Andor, there’s no wifi; you have to make an effort to connect with both information and other beings. He then draws a line to us algorithm- and screen-weary humans today. We’re adopting older tech including vinyl records, compact discs, dumbphones, and land lines. And maybe a Calculighter?

h/t to at Semi-Rad for this one.

3. Leland Melvin Day

This meme is making the rounds, especially on Tumblr. If you were extremely online back in the day, the photo of astronaut Leland Melvin posing with his dogs while wearing his flight suit was a source of wholesome joy.

But, sometimes I hate my need to know the backstory behind phrases. What this meme doesn’t share is that the Lynchburg mayor declared April 7th Leland Melvin Day at a convocation service for Liberty University (eww), founded by Jerry Falwell (ewwww), where Melvin was the keynote speaker in 2008 (facepalm). Maybe it’s a good thing that he forgot all about this event, as I would like to as well.

4. Moon joy

I saw a meme noting that next year there will be a wave of babies named Artemis Moon Joy and I ain’t even mad.

The New York Times covered how this phrase came about:

Reid Wiseman of NASA, the mission’s commander, eagerly noted impact craters and a swirl on the lunar surface.

“It’s just everything from the training, but in three dimensions and absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “This is incredible.”

Jacki Mahaffey, a NASA officer in mission control, laughed in response. “Copy, moon joy,” she said.

5. The overview effect

While reading up on some of the Artemis-related phrases for this edition, I came across this piece in Scientific American that describes the overview effect. Coined by aptly-named science author Frank Write in 1987, the overview effect describes the profound cognitive impact astronauts feel after viewing Earth from a distance. Write also argued that this effect extends to the rest of us when we view photos taken from space.

However, in the same article, U of Chicago space historian Jordan Bimm argues that the overview effect is more cultural than an inherent human response, adding that it’s “handy marketing for private space companies.” Fair point. A 2024 Dutch study monitored brain waves and self-reporting of participants who took a VR space journey and found evidence for the cognitive effects of space travel.

I wonder how studying people experiencing something else utterly new and awe-inspiring would compare; are we just describing what happens when we feel a sense of wonder, or is there truly something unique that happens to us when we see our home from space? We need more science to find out.

6. Competency porn

wrote a great post at Airplane Mode that captures what so many of us are feeling:

Artemis II is Competency Porn and We Are Starving For It

Subhed: girls will be like i needed this and it’s just four nerds in space

Did you feel it too? That specific relief that’s hard to name. I found myself trying to understand it. The closest I can get is this: the feeling of watching something go right and realizing, somewhere deep in your body, that you had forgotten things could go right. Because when something actually goes right, when the people in charge do their jobs well, speak in full sentences, make decisions that protect people instead of endangering them, the reaction can feel strangely emotional. What you’re feeling isn’t just relief, it’s grief. Grief for every year you spent bracing. Grief for how normal the bracing became. Grief for how completely you forgot that competence was once ordinary.

That is not a small thing. That is your nervous system coming up for air. I want you to enjoy it. And when they land, and they will land, and the news cycle will move on immediately as it always does, I want you to remember that you felt this.

So say we all. The whole post is great - head over to read it.

Bonus Nuggets

1. Who doesn’t love an American Woodcock video?

My algo has discovered that I love American Woodcock videos, so here’s a 15-second clip that made me literally laugh-cry (sound on, I implore you):

2. Mary Oliver documentary!!!

“I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone.”

ME TOO, MARY. ME. TOO.

Seeing Jon Waters in this makes me want to see it even more.

3. Clippy would never

This week in phraseology

Hello there! In this edition of Wordpecker, we have interstellar commodes, a salty pope, fuzzy felt facsimiles, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Dumb McNamara

In a phrase that reads like a recurring SNL skit, Dumb McNamara is a nickname Pentagon and Department of Defense staffers have reportedly bestowed upon the soft-bodied, self-designated “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth. This is a reference to Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who seemed to fuck up that war pretty badly but remained respected as a military strategist. I am no war historian; I only care about this man as a conduit for burning Hegseth.

Coincidence alert - Jono Hey wrote about The McNamara Fallacy this week for Sketchplanations, which is also named for Robert McNamara but totally unrelated to being a bloodthirsty and eye-wateringly stupid warmonger.

Which brings us to our next phrase . . .

2. Holy as fuck

If you’re a Chicagoan, Catholic, and a White Sox fan, Pope Leo memes are your time to shine. (Shoutout to my pal Mike!)

Pop culture translation for any non-Xennial/GenX/Boomers reading who may not know the visual reference: Young Pope Leo is dressed here as one of the Blues Brothers, a movie that is basically a love letter to Chicago.

It seems Pope Leo is also not a fan of Dumb McNamara. This week, he made a statement that God rejects the prayers of leaders who wage wars, a pointed reference to Hegseth recently leading prayers for “overwhelming violence of action” against Iran. I’m not religious at all, but even I know that Jesus and violence are not supposed to go together.

3. Zodiacal glow

I saw this phrase in Liz Neeley’s newsletter, Meeting the Moment, which covers news and events in science and higher education. More commonly referenced as zodiacal light, I prefer glow as a more evocative and lovely option befitting Neeley’s writing. She describes this phenomenon as “a result of interplanetary dust scattering the sunlight,” and was specifically referencing this incredible image of Earth taken this week from the Orion spacecraft. You can see zodiacal glow at the bottom right of the image. Here’s a fun explainer by astrophysicist Katie Mack. By the way, there are lots of fake images of the Artemis II expedition, so double-check against what NASA is posting before sharing.

The good news is, you don’t need to be in space to see it, although moonlight and human-made light make it hard to see. Team Dark Skies!

SKYbrary, which I’ve written about before here, describes zodiacal glow with an image of what it looks like from Earth:

Zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise) is a faint, diffuse, and roughly triangular white glow that is visible in the night sky and appears to extend from the Sun's direction and along the zodiac, straddling the ecliptic, which is the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun.

Here’s an image from the New York Public Library:

All this space talk brings us to the next phrase . . .

4. Rogue floating turds

If you’re new here, you may not know I curate a collection of amusing headlines, and this week, another one made the cut:

Poop in space revisited: Apollo 10’s floating turds pop up 44 years later

In an incident sometimes described as “Close Encounters of the Turd Kind,” a transcript of the Apollo 10 mission, uh, log describes the three astronauts dealing with more than one errant poop, released from the confines of both gravity and the plastic storage bag where they belonged. Hat tip to Morning Brew for use of the word rogue to complete this phrase.

The current mission to the moon is significant because it’s the first spacecraft outfitted with a space toilet1. This, uh, piece from CNN describing some of the crew’s troubles with the new commode features a subheading “Glistening space pee,” a stupendous phrase if ever I saw one. The line from the toilet that ejects urine froze, so astronauts were instructed to temporarily use the toilet for poop only.

I don’t know about you, but how is that even possible? Do I need to do more kegels? Did an AI that has never once pooped write those instructions? Anyway, the fix was: We shot the pee out into space, where it glistened, freed up the toilet for full use once again, and hopefully didn’t accidentally start an intergalactic war due to the grave insult of flinging excreta around the galaxy.

5. Bonjour Ottawa

Barry Petchesky at Defector wrote a thoughtful essay about the mayor of Ottawa’s mid photos of his city (gift link), shared on the stupidly named X/formerly Twitter from his morning runs. He opens each tweet with “Good morning, Ottawa. Bonjour, Ottawa.” There’s something to be said for not making everything Instagrammable or otherwise palatable to sell something to others, and Petchesky says it well here.

7. Felted Nudibranchs

Before reading about this phrase, you really need to click this link at Colossal to see how visually stunning this project is. While working as a cook at a remote bio-research facility on an island in the White Sea, Georgian artist Arena Borevich became fascinated with nudibranchs, or sea slugs, which come in a delightful array of shapes and colors. (I wrote about one variety here.)

Because it probably gets pretty boring on a Russian island science station, Borevich started making tiny felted wool renditions of these colorful creatures to share with the scientists and students working there. A decade later, she runs Wool Creature Lab, with monthly giveaways for Patreon supporters (currently paused for the artist’s maternity leave).

The Wool Creature Lab Instagram is a pretty fun follow, too.

Learn more about nudibranchs and check out some great photos at the National History Museum, London.

Book hype interlude: One I’m stoked about

My talented zine-making friend Lee wrote a book on a topic that feels deeply relevant right now:

The book explores why it’s so hard to make friends in adulthood from both practical and societal angles and makes a bold case for creating a less lonely world.

• If you’re Canadian, you can preorder directly from the author here (puts more $ in the author’s pocket) or from the publisher (boosts the odds of future book deals).

• American? Sucks to be us in general but at least we can get a copy via Lee’s U.S. store. (Preorders from U.S. booksellers coming soon!)

Bonus Nuggets

1. For those who prefer flying to driving

Wordpecker reader Mel sent this lovely companion to an ideal road trip map I shared recently:

The Poços de Caldas airport code is POO. And yes, there is a PEE: Perm International Airport in Russia. So you can fly from PEE to POO, or reverse it because we don’t kink shame here.

2. Super-weird bloom

As a follow-up to the last edition, here are the names of some of the flowers super-blooming in Death Valley, with links to see what they look like:

• Desert Five-Spot

• Gravel Ghost

• Wallace’s Woolly Daisy

• Popcorn Flower

• Grape soda lupine

Thanks to Wordpecker subscriber Tonya for sending these in!

3. My current favorite meme

I’ve seen more than one variation of this meme; it shows a potentially terrifying natural phenomenon with the caption NOT NOW [TERRIFYING NATURAL PHENOMENON].

If you spot any good versions of this in the wild, please send them to me!

That’s it for this edition! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious.

This week in phraseology

Welcome to another edition of Wordpecker! In this edition, we have bean fiends, content slop of the week (it’s slop all the way down these days), cool nature stuff, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Leguminous wave

I hadn’t covered this trend yet, but last fall I’d saved fibermaxxing1 as a word to write about here and as a coming trend for 2026. And here we are: Yasmin Tayag artfully writes about “One Food All Americans Can Agree On” for the Atlantic. In this piece, Tayag takes readers through an engaging exploration of the cultural perceptions, nutritional benefits, and rising popularity of beans among MAHA strivers, coupon cutters, and word-of-mouth marketing by beanfluencer superfans of Rancho Gordo heirloom beans, which we’ve explored here previously.

Bean producers are “riding this legumnious wave” of popularity and introducing new twists on old standbys, including prepackaged lunches with Asian- and Mediterranean-inspired flavors.

The article is rife with beany phrase goodness, including the Lentiful brand (co-founded by someone named Ben Bacon), bean innovation, and bean novitiates. I’d also like to note for the record that bean is an objectively great word that’s fun to say.

2. Phylogeny

For all the biology courses I took in college, I’m surprised I’ve not encountered phylogeny, which refers broadly to the connections between organisms based on ancestry. Maybe I did but have since forgotten!

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (I’m a big fan) recently released an interactive Phylogeny Explorer tool, where you can map the ancestry of any bird species. According to the press release, keeping track of the taxonomy for 11,000 bird species is a daunting task. The Phylogeny Explorer aims to support for scientific research or just for funsies.

3. Lawslop

I discovered another circle of AI slop hell via Craig Silverman at Indicator: lawslop. People are creating YouTube accounts with huge viewer counts that show either deepfakes of public figures—like former special counsel Jack Smith issuing warnings about Trump—or fake court proceedings featuring fake people, all presented as if they’re real.

Here’s a thing about AI slop that grinds my gears: It’s not just mid, but it’s unnecessary. The world is full of abundant wonders and interesting stories—we don’t need fake cute animal videos to keep us entertained. Cute animals exist in abundance! As do court cases! We don’t need any of this fleetingly entertaining, mediocre garbage!

4. Taco wizards

When you order from Taco Bell online, the app informs you that taco wizards are busy working on your delicious meal. If I worked at Taco Bell, I would add Taco Wizard to my resume AND LinkedIn profile. Honestly, nothing is stopping me from doing this now.

Confidential to the overlords at the Taco Bell coven: a title like Taco Wizard should command a living wage, don’t you think?

5. Cybertruck for your face

As Meta glasses are becoming more of a thing, stories are emerging of men using them to film women without their consent, a gross loser behavior Meta doesn’t seem bothered by at all. This is unsurprising given that the company’s founder started Facebook as a way to rate the physical appearance of women on college campuses. Oh, and speaking of gross loser behavior, they also want to add facial recognition to Meta glasses.

Instead of banning these creepshot glasses, Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day proposes making them socially uncool by calling them a Cybertruck for your face:

Meta’s business is data and they get that data, largely for free, from users by calling it content creation. They don’t care if “content creation” . . . means terrorizing random women on the street as long as the footage helps their AI understand what that street looks like. In fact, one could argue that by facilitating extremely predatory and aggressive behavior they get the data they want even faster because they are offering their users a perfect excuse to act like complete and utter freaks. And so, the only off-ramp here has to be people pushing back against Meta Ray-Ban users. If we don’t want to be surveilled, we have to start making these things feel like a Cybertruck you wear on your face. And make people feel like the fucking losers they are for walking around with Mark Zuckerberg’s personal spyglass strapped to their heads.

It’s worth a try.

6. Soil seed bank

Have you caught the images of the wildflower superbloom happening in Death Valley, aka the driest place in North America? According to Tiffany Pereira, an ecologist and research scientist at the Desert Research Institute, desert plants are adept at storing energy when water is scarce. Seeds are able to go dormant and wait for the right amount of rainfall to bloom, which happened with a rainier winter this year. The NYT has a good explainer of desert plant ecology with great photos, too.

New! 🌪️ Let’s do a Wordpecker Speed Round 🏃🏻‍♀️

Here’s an occasional Wordpecker segment for words and phrases that don’t require a lot of explanation but are still novel, delightful, and share-worthy.

• Ebesneezer - My husband’s nickname for Yoshi, our parakeet who sneezes a lot 😷

• Diet Cokemon - I found this extremely funny, but maybe you had to be there. While discussing Pokemon (as one does), my husband announced he was going to get a Diet Coke . . . emon. 🥤

• Catsy - A word that came to me in a dream, with no other context. Is it Etsy, but for cats? 🐈

• Big gay IKEA bag - As they say in the law, res ipsa loquitur, or the thing (aka STORSTOMMA) speaks for itself - courtesy of my oldest kid 🏳️‍🌈

• More muscles, more problems - Something my personal trainer says every time we increase weights or reps (he is very mean) 💪🏻

• Soot Yourself - A local chimney sweep company 🏠

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious!

Meat conspiracy | The Mummy’s Thumb

This week in phraseology

Since I last published an update, a whole-ass war broke out, which opened by bombing a school, my beautiful friend died after 2.5 years of pancreatic cancer treatment, and we had a family emergency that is thankfully stable for now. Also, Substack FINALLY, after three years of me bitching about it, added the ability to center text—the most basic of features they held back on because one of the founders doesn’t like it. 🙄🤡

It’s wild how we’re all expected to keep on working like nothing’s wrong and we’re not all still traumatized from COVID. All so we can enrich seven or so billionaire sociopath clowns while being gaslit that things like universal healthcare, free education, and free early childhood care are unaffordable while we can easily afford a billion-dollar-a-day war that we didn’t get a voice in starting.

Yes, I’m salty this week. I’m salty every week.

I took last week off to deal with everything, both logistically and emotionally. Writing Wordpecker is one of the things that tethers me to what is good in this life: Connecting to readers like you, writing jokes, and learning new things.

Another good thing right now is our always-fun discourse in the comments section.

What are you doing to cope with the current horrors? What keeps you tethered to reality, and to what’s good in this life?

Leave a comment

I know you came here for words and phrases, and I’ve got some good ones this week, including yet another fart-themed phrase, the color of mediocrity, the nerd glasses of underwear, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Fart piano

As people are on social media less and less and our media landscape continues to fracture, I’m increasingly unsure of how to share some of the fun stuff I find for Wordpecker. I try to source more than one outlet, and most of them have login barrier issues, where sometimes a thing is viewable and sometimes not. Hell, even Substack prevents people from commenting here sometimes because their email login system doesn’t bring you back to the newsletter, but rather Substack’s homepage, and people give up without leaving a comment. Great job, fellas! 🙄🤡

Anyway, it’s a thing, I’m aware of it, and I’m not yet sure of a solution.

Allll that to say: I originally found this post about a toy fart piano by musician Andy Rehfeldt on Instagram, which not everyone uses anymore. But there’s also a YouTube version, which feeds you ads but doesn’t make you sign in. Yay?

Rehfeldt has several shorts featuring him playing songs on the fart piano - please enjoy:

1. Farting in the Name Of

2. Thunderstruck

3. The theme from Halloween

2. Munge

In Don’t Let the Machines Do the Living, Anne Helen Petersen recently wrote about AI in her typically thoughtful, nuanced way that’s worth a read. In this essay, she quotes Brian Eno describing his experience with AI output:

When I was a kid, I liked watercolor painting a lot. And I used to notice that after a day of painting, the water that I was dipping my brush into, which was, of course, a mixture of all the colors I’d touched that day, was always the same color. I called it “munge,” a sort of purply, browny — horrible color, basically. And whenever I’ve tried creating things on ChatGPT … I work very hard to get my prompts right and to filter what I’m saying to it and to try to urge it into something interesting. But the color of munge covers all of it.

Petersen likens this to what she calls pop graveyard, (another great phrase) where you’d get a bit of every soda from a fountain and it always ended up tasting “like orange root beer.” Discernment and taste are good things.

3. Long-sleeve underwear

Miya Acacia, whose Instagram bio reads “professional forehead smoocher,” shared a fun post about the joys of granny panties and did a follow-up where she describes them as long-sleeve underwear, lol.

She also addresses commenters’ fears that men won’t find granny panties sexy. Based on decades of personal experience, my thoughts on that are: Please. Men will take any opportunity to get in there. We could wear shredded boxer shorts, granny panties up to our shoulders, or a soggy paper grocery bag from our last Taco Bell order; it doesn’t matter—you’ll still get some.

4. Broad-billed Motmot

Continuing my working theory that the people who name birds do lots of interesting drugs, we have the Broad-billed Motmot. These little mountain-forest dwellers are found near the Andes Mountains in Central and South America. Motmot is very fun to say, and they sure are gorgeous:

5. Meat conspiracy

Matt Stoller’s newsletter, Big, which covers antitrust news, is a great source of information for making sense of our current enshittified society. When Stoller recently covered the Amazon price-fixing case, which is W-I-L-D stuff, he mentioned a meat conspiracy price-fixing case.

Researching this led to even more great phrases. The incredibly-named National Hog Farmer reports on lawsuits known as in re Pork dating back to 2018, which allege that American pork producers are engaging in a price-fixing conspiracy. Because of course they are. At some point, the business world needs to start comprehending the concept of “enough.” If you have to cheat to win, you’re losing. Well, they’re not losing but the rest of us sure are. And some of us are researching DIY guillotines.

6. The Mummy’s Thumb

My brother, a 55-year-old man with Down Syndrome, is obsessed with Svengoolie, a campy pre-MST3K show that’s been poking fun at classic horror movies since the late 1970s. On a recent phone call, he mentioned an upcoming movie called The Mummy’s Thumb.

Is the mummy hitchhiking? Writing movie reviews? Or is this what my middle kid described as a Monkey’s Paw scenario, where grave robbers dig up a thumb and bad things happen to them?

I asked my brother if he meant The Mummy’s Tomb, and sure enough, that movie exists. But! Svengoolie is also featuring a film this month called The Mummy’s Hand. Is the Mummy’s Thumb some form or shrinkflation, where we only get the thumb instead of the entire hand? How many mummy body part movies are out there? This is where my research ended, because frankly, I don’t want to know.

Bonus Bits

1. Tired: AI is inevitable. Wired: AI is mid.

Lyz Lenz wrote about AI this week, quoting sociologist, author, and documentary filmmaker Tressie McMillan Cottom in I hate the whole idea of this - another essay worth your time. As a sociology professor whose industry is greatly impacted by AI, Dr. McMillan Cottom has argued that AI products are mid at best from the get-go. Yes, there are good use cases for when speed (but not accuracy) are needed, but they don’t hold up compared to the scale of what we’re being sold. And we are being sold something here.

If you find value in using AI, I get it. It’s very fast at some things, like scanning lots of documents or images, or vibe coding as a starting point, or image editing, or summarizing meetings. It can quickly organize your notes or convert a document into a table. Personally, I find note taking by hand/keyboard helps me remember much more (science seems to back me up here), but I understand that everyone’s work and workloads are different.

But none of its current benefits or use cases negate that LLMs are being oversold as more useful than they actually are, overhyped as “inevitable,” and propped up by a circular economy that’s likely gonna crash, hard. And I haven’t even touched on the environmental impacts, data center controversies, or employers using it as an excuse to fire people in this post - but all of those things are part of the picture, too. I think we need to have hard cultural conversations about whether all of these downsides are worth it.

2. Wordpecker stickers are here!

Way to bury the lede, Toni. OMG OMG OMG! I’m so excited about this. I . . . don’t have an online shop yet, though I’d like to set one up for some of my extremely silly offerings including zines, infographics, and stickers. Let me know if you’d like a sticker - they’re available for free to paid subscribers, who help keep the lights on here at Wordpecker HQ - if that’s you, send me your mailing address!

3. Help PanCan.org find a cure for pancreatic cancer

Please consider donating to PanCan.org in honor of my friend Jennifer, who lived a full life filled with laughter and love. Pancreatic cancer currently has a 13% survival rate, and with the federal government arbitrarily slashing funding, research is threatened. As I keep saying these days, “It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.” Small actions add up.

4. I would totally watch a movie about

Whatever this is:

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.

This week in phraseology

In this edition, we have belated Olympic buzz, fun animal stories, and new family member news.

Also, something fun: The first person in comments who can name both movies referenced in this edition’s heading and subheading will win a brand new Wordpecker sticker!

Leave a comment

Let’s get to it!

1. Robocutter

As a follow-up to a recent post about the capercaillie, an endangered Scottish bird, I read about an automated brush cutter used to encourage growth of one of the birds’ favorite foods. Colloquially called a Robocutter, you can see an image of one here, and delight in how it looks like a shih tsu.

I don’t know about you, but I am hungry for good news, and so here’s some: capercaillie populations have increased 50% since 2020. 👏🏻

Can we please make an animated short about Robocutter and the capercaillie adventuring in the forest?

2. Boopgate

Sorry I’m late on Olympic news, but I was on vacation with my husband two weeks ago disentangling from some pretty severe burnout. A huge privilege, I know. This phrase comes from a cheating scandal in the winter Olympics sport we all love to mock: Curling.

During a match between the Swedish and Canadian teams, the Swedish team accused a Canadian player of touching the curling stone after the point where you’re not supposed to do that (hilariously known as the “hogline”). The footage looks like he’s booping the curling stone, and thus, boopgate took the internet by storm for about five minutes. (Good memes at the link.)

3. Sportswashing

By now you’ve likely read the news about Donald Trump congratulating the men’s Olympic hockey team for their gold medal win while making time to mock the women’s team, despite their similar but more notable victory. The men’s team went to the White House for the State of the Union address, where they were trotted out like they were in a dog show, a move journalist Frankie de la Cretaz calls sportswashing, a “well-known tactic of authoritarian regimes:”

[Trump] is following in the footsteps of Russia (the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics), China (the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics), and Nazi Germany (the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics), in using the “soft power” of hosting cultural events on an international stage to whitewash the government’s misdeeds.

Meanwhile, the women’s team will be celebrated in a Las Vegas event this summer hosted by ::checks notes:: Flavor Flav, with Sheila E. performing for free to support women in sports. (h/t to Lyz Lenz at Men Yell at Me for this phrase.)

4. Nazgul

It had to happen sometime; the Lord of the Rings fandom is gonna come for me because I didn’t know this reference. During an Olympic skiing event, a wolfdog named Nazgul decided to leave home and compete in the games and even crossing the finish line. Nazgul was returned to his humans, declared a Very Good Boy, and awarded an honorary gold medal for his efforts.

5. Pointy Duck

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I love phrases that find a funny new way of describing something ordinary, and this one, uh, fits the bill1:

6. Kiwi Herman

More on the good news front: We adopted a budgie! A friend heard that someone needed to surrender their pet bird and asked if we were interested. At first, my kids were hesitant to adopt an older bird who might not live that long, but when I asked if they would feel differently knowing our family would give them the best possible life, they caved. It didn’t take much, honestly.

Kiwi is a green and yellow fellow we estimate to be about eight years old; budgies tend to live around 10 years but can make it to 15. He’s very sweet, with a melodic song like running water. I immediately nicknamed him The Keister and one of my kids (who does not read this newsletter) countered with . . . Kiwi Herman. Proud parenting moment right there. Here’s a photo courtesy of my son’s boyfriend - budgies are notoriously hard to photograph because they’re constantly moving:

Fun fact: We know Kiwi is a boy because his cere (nose) is bright blue. Females tend to have a beige, peach, or even lilac cere.

7. Goobis

One of our fish died recently; RIP Homer, you made it like three years, which is no small feat for a guy of your tiny size. Pop Tart needed a new roomie, so off we went to the local pet store to adopt Kermit. We also got to meet Goobis (!!!!!):

I don’t know what Goobis is, but I do know that I love them.

Bonus Nuggets

1. Calling all Trekkies

This incredible riff on ST:TNG is for you:

2. Ugh.

Not this shit again.

3. If the fart fits . . .

Via Holly at :

ChatGPT, when said with a French accent, sounds exactly like “Chat, j’ai peté” which is french for “Cat, I farted.”

This one feels appropriate because I know cats who can fart better content than ChatGPT. Speaking of cat farts, my very first job was as a data entry clerk in an office with a cat who hung out near our computer terminals cranking out farts that made a whistling sound. America does indeed have talent!

That’s it for this week. Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

A slightly shorter list this week, but it’s pithy, with a lot of girth.

This week, we have place names that must be fake, a playful, showy birb, and some wang stuff. And memes, always memes. Because I love you.

Let’s get to it!

1. Tooting Commons

A British friend was talking about the sun FINALLY emerging from the gloom for a few minutes, and another Brit chimed in to ask where they lived. A wild exchange of (supposed) place names ensued: York Knavesmire, Ducking Row, Peckham Rye Park, Putney Heath, and Flopintottin Camhide. (I only made up some of them and I didn’t even use this English place name generator, though I should have.)

But one stood out from the rest: Tooting Commons. Which is an actual place!

From Wikipedia:

The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin but the meaning is disputed. It could mean the people of Tota, in which context Tota may have been a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain.^[3] Alternatively it could be derived from an old meaning of the verb to tout, to look out.

As in, “Look out, I’m gonna rip one.”

This launched us into a discussion of funny place names. My friend Mike shared Buttzville, NJ and one of the Brits dropped THIS into the chat:

Wikipedia to the rescue, again:

“The name is jokingly defined in The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams as meaning ‘a moist penis’.”

This conversation reminded me of a meme a friend has sent me more than once (I truly have the best pals), that I thought was fake but is not (!!!!):

I would 100% take this road trip. Who’s with me?

2. Capercaillie

Did you know that Europe has its own version of a turkey? And here I thought America was exceptional (sarcasm, derogatory). I’m confident our turkeys are bigger assholes.

Sadly, the “charismatic grouse1” capercaillie (capper-kaylee) is endangered, but conservationists in the Scottish Highlands forests are working on it. You can see a photo of these handsome birbs at that link and a video at this one, along with conservation updates. I love how unimpressed the hens seem by the male.

Capercaillie are called the “horse of the woods” because they like to horse around:

The males were counted at spring lekking sites – “lek” is Old Norse for play - when the showy black and red birds perform spectacular “flutter jumps” and make popping and clicking sounds to woo the smaller, camouflaged females.

The usual confluence of shitty things are endangering these birds — climate change, deforestation for cattle grazing, increased egg theft, human encroachment—and even social media attention.

Conservationists are addressing the issue on multiple fronts - they even designed a mower to encourage growth of a primary plant food source for the birds. I’m ever grateful for the tireless, methodical and badass work conservationists do.

3. Penisgate

A few people reached out to ask if I was aware of the Olympic controversy involving ski jumpers’ enhanced dicks and yes, yes I am.

A German newspaper first reported that Olympic ski jumpers may be injecting their penises with substances like paraffin or hyaluronic acid, presumably while “I Believe I Can Fly” plays in the background.

I guess this is a thing that might work? Scientific American wrote about the physics of ski jumping with an oversized hog.

4. Expired Dicks

Speaking of dicks, Wordpecker reader Kris sent this one - I was aware of the story but not the phrase.

Did we know that dildos have expiration dates? I did not. Is this a marketing move designed to get us to consume more dildos? Do we all need to clean out our dresser drawers? Do you know what this is doing to my Google search???

The phrase “expired dicks” comes from Chad Davis, a Minneapolis photographer who’s been documenting the federal government’s occupation of the city to terrorize, kidnap, and even murder its citizens. Davis created a great page on his website that documents the so-called “Operation Metro Surge,” vital journalism to bear witness to these horrors.

Here’s a Bluesky post from Davis showing people throwing dildos at ICE agents’ vehicles:

We love to see it!

::types do dildos expire -ai2::

::why do silicone dildos have expiration dates -ai::

Glamour magazine to the rescue! (tl;dr - common sense, look for wear and tear, etc.) I guess silicone dildos come with expiration dates but see my note above - I suspect it’s a marketing ploy designed to make us buy more stuff, but I could be wrong.

Women’s Health seems to concur, and includes a helpful section titled How To Get Rid of Sex Toys - the correct answer is to throw them at ICE, duh.

Yesterday my brother, who has Down Syndrome, called to give me the scoop on decluttering his closet. “It’s called spring cleaning,” he said, with the gravitas people use when imparting great wisdom to someone younger or less worldly. I’m surprised he didn’t add “Look it up.”

Anyway, bottom line (heh): As spring approaches, you know what task to add to your seasonal cleaning checklist. 🍆🧊

Bonus Nuggets

Not phrases, but still fun.

1. Help crush book censorship and protect the freedom to read

Learn about freedom to read laws and get some simple action steps from my brilliant pal Kelly Jensen at Book Riot.

2. JD Vance booed at the Olympics opening ceremonies

🗣️ Let’s keep making this a thing. 📢

3. New reply just dropped

The tl;dr3 for the current moment (and, sadly, the foreseeable future):

4. Fax Your DNA to YouTube

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Last week, it made it above zero degrees where I live a couple of times. I went for a walk in the sunshine without a coat because it felt balmy and it was . . . twenty five degrees outside. The days are getting longer, the sun is setting later, and I can just feel around the edges of spring. I will take these tiny bits of joy wherever I can get them, and I hope you are, too.

In this edition, we have unkempt men, shapely dates, moody dumplings, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Square February

We’re starting with a fun one! People in certain corners of the internet are gaga over the fact that in 2026, the month of February perfectly fills all four rows of a Gregorian calendar. Typically called Perfect February, I thought Square February was pretty funny, even though (“actually” guy voice) on most calendars, it’s a rectangle.

Is this the nerdiest thing I’ve ever written about? Possibly! Also the one good thing from the Midwest’s most miserable month.

2. Kleptoparasitism

It’s bald eagle breeding season, and that means it’s time to obsessively check the Friends of Big Bear Valley YouTube livestream to see what resident eagles Jackie and Shadow are up to.1 In a recent social post, the FOBBV team wrote about juvenile bald eagles showing up to steal food from older eagles’ nests like college kids raiding the fridge on winter break—a behavior known as kleptoparasitism.

If you’ve heard of kleptomania—the compulsive theft of random items—that prefix will look familiar. It’s from the Greek klepto, “to steal.” Parasite’s etymology is kind of interesting; the word was first used in 16th century France, built from older words, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary - the greek para (beside) and sitos (grain, bread, food), a word of unknown origin.

According to Cornell Labs, Benjamin Franklin argued that eagle piracy was sufficient reason to cancel them as a national symbol of the U.S. Franklin argued for the wild turkey, but they do have a bit of a visual branding problem in that they look like they’re still evolving.

Kleptoparasitism isn’t exclusive to eagles, or even birds. Birds raid other nests all the time because they’re dicks it’s hard out there for wildlife.

3. Switching costs

I’m about 3/4 of the way through Cory Doctorow’s book Enshittification, a term he coined that I wrote about three years ago. Doctorow is an engaging and skilled nonfiction writer and this book is so good I want to buy a copy for everyone I know.

As he writes more than once in the book, enshittification happens when companies move value away from customers and give it to shareholders. Companies easily do this nowadays due to a lack of antitrust enforcement (breaking up monopolies), lawmakers’ lack of tech savvy, and the slower pace of regulation compared to innovation. So, it’s not our imagination: everything sucks now. Digital price tags allowing retailers to jack up the price of umbrellas when it rains? Legal. Meta and Google earning billions (not a typo) from their collusion on digital ad sales? A-okay so far! Amazon having a choke-hold monopoly on ebook sales? Nooo problem!

As for switching costs, it’s something I think we’ve all experienced: Everything you have to give up when switching from one platform to another, from convenience to actual digital products like ebooks, games, or music. For example, I’ve wanted to leave Spotify for a while; they pay their artists next to nothing, their CEO is funding an AI-driven war drone startup, etc., but I’m staying for now because switching is a pain in the ass and I don’t currently have bandwidth for it. I will likely leave Substack for Ghost this year, but it will take quite a bit of work and expense to do so.

It’s not always easy to leave a platform or service. It takes time, and effort, and expense, and clarity about what you’re giving up vs. what you’re gaining. There are times when paying switching costs is worth it; I don’t ever regret leaving Twitter, for example. Another problem inherent in this cost-switching calculus is that all of these large companies that have eaten up or crowded out smaller firms are run by amoral selfish pricks (see: the Epstein files and your grocery bill, for starters). If I leave every place engaged in bad practices, the number of options left to work or exist would be minimal. Nothing is simple when everything is enshittified.

4. Nudifier

Here’s a word I really, really wish I didn’t know. But it’s in the lexicon now, so we’re gonna cover it, in the hopes that some mothereffers get a consequence for it.

I recently discovered the Indicator newsletter, an indie news outlet covering the “digital deception” beat—a much-needed resource in the AI age. They wrote about how Meta is allowing ads for “AI nudifiers,” or apps that create images of people—usually women and (barf) children—undressed. In 2025, Meta ran over 25K of these ads. One tiny upside is that a good portion of these ads are scams, so pervs get nothing for their money (ha ha).

In Consequences Corner, Paris prosecutors raided the offices of X (formerly Twitter) because Elon Musk’s Grok AI allows users to create deepfake adult and child pornography images on the app, and X leadership are doing nothing to stop it.

What libertarian “free speech absolutists” like Musk and the men who run Substack don’t seem to understand is that free speech doesn’t function optimally without guardrails, because harmful, abusive speech ends up suppressing marginalized voices or doing heinous, inexcusable shit like this. Absolute free speech is just “free speech for the privileged,” which is all they probably care about anyway.

My hope is that as we elect younger progressives who understand tech, we can see similar criminal legal enforcement in the U.S., because companies and their leaders need to start seeing consequences.

5. Filthy Kevin

Palate cleanser time! This phrase comes from an ancient (2017) Tumblr post and its reblog response, via my oldest kid. Props to Dirty Andy as a solid runner-up. I wonder where this quiz came from—is it an old Buzzfeed regional foods thing? Google image search didn’t find anything.

Apparently this one resonated: check out the stats:

And yet, no rebranding campaign for the sloppy Joe has happened yet. When will the Democrats in Congress act?!?!?

6. Puffin counter

Let’s end on a delightful note. Longtime reader and superfan Deborah sent this as an addition to the Cool Jobs category. Would you like to live for free on a remote island off the coast of Wales? You can, if you’re willing to count endangered puffins as a volunteer for the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales (WTSWW). If you’re in the UK, they’ll also pay your travel expenses to Skomer Island, a national nature preserve. There are no shops or permanent residents there, but there is a hostel run by the Wildlife Trust. Here are some great images captured on the island last year.

Would you volunteer for this gig?

Leave a comment

Bonus Nugget

Not phrases, but still fun.

1. I need an angry pierogi plush. NEED!!!

Saw this post on Bluesky:

And someone posted a link to the shop in the replies and maybe it’s because I’m both Polish and Ukrainian, but I’ve never wanted anything more than this grumpy little guy:

At first I thought this one was a stoner pierogi but I think it’s an alien. Why not both?

2. One of my favorite memes from recent months

That’s it for this edition! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious!

This week in phraseology

Well, we made it through January. Somehow. I hesitate to call an entire year good or bad but I will say that so far, 2026 has been a chaotic, messy b and I hope that trend does not continue. There is hope: the sun is setting after 5 here and the temps should climb above freezing after a week of subzero penance. My oldest kid and his partner bought a house and moved out, and while I miss them, I am also no longer writing from concentration corner, having expanded onto a three-season (heated) porch with views of (increasingly horny) wild turkeys leaping onto our roof from the backyard.

Also, I brought you some fresh phrases! This week, we have frozen breakfasts, revenge of the band nerds, cue ball in the front/party in the back, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. Ice pancakes

Being a Midwesterner, “pancake ice” feels like something I should know, but I like ice pancakes more. Ice pancakes are slushy discs that form in larger bodies of water, where the motion of the water causes slush forming near the surface to break apart and get knocked around into, well, ice pancakes.

Meteorology nerd alert 🤓 — Wikipedia offered up a bounty of types of ice that I had never heard of:

• Shuga - Slush, but chonkier

• Frazil - Also slushy but somehow different from shuga??? I think people who stare out the window at frozen water start losing their minds a little bit

• Grease ice - Ice that looks like an oil slick, not that D student bully from high school who took a signing bonus to terrorize his neighbors in soldier cosplay

• Ice rind - Shiny ice crust!

• Nilas - Do you enjoy visiting museums but get fatigued from taking in so much information? This is how I’m feeling about ice right now. Anyway, nilas is thicc. Nilas needs better branding. Get Cantore on the phone—I can help.

Check out this footage of kayakers navigating around giant frozen flapjacks on Lake Michigan in Chicago. This phrase was shared via my husband — thanks, honey! P.S. Can you clean out the garage fridge because a can of Coke exploded in there and I’m busy writing? Thanks!

2. Slidey guy

Do you know the feeling when you come across a social media account run by someone who knows how to do it well? That’s the rush I got when I found this post from a couple of band directors at hinghambandtok.

Captioned “that one kid in band class,” they start off with one person saying, “Actually, it’s flautist” while holding a flute. Then they launch into some really good jokes, including:

• Actually, it’s trumpediatrician (trumpet)

• Actually it’s hornithologist (French horn)

• Actually it’s saxolotl (saxophone)

The “slidey guy” (trombone) line really hits and I love it so much. There are more good ones, so go watch the whole thing!

3. Great Farts of Literature

Have you ever bought a book on impulse? (Me: “Only every week!”) Someone I know mentioned that their friend has a book coming out soon. The author, Elizabeth Zaleski, has a memoir coming out in February called The Trouble With Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure (you can order from that link).

But tucked away on Zaleski’s website is a heading called Other Projects, where I found greatfartsofliterature.com: Great Farts of Literature—Ranked.

Here’s the about section:

It was only after I'd already read the majority of the Western canon that I started paying attention to the really important stuff, namely passages about flatulence.

As an English lit major and lifelong fart appreciator, this is entirely my jam. I immediately went looking for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and there he was. They even use the 💨 emoji to rate the passages. My life is now complete.

As a Louise Erdrich stan1, I have to share this from one of the rankings:

In addition to being, generally speaking, one of the greatest novelists of our time, Louise Erdrich is, more specifically, the reigning queen of the literary fart. In this exquisitely rendered and uproarious scene, Nanapush farts himself to death. But wait, there's more.

I immediately pre-ordered Zaleski’s book, which features an essay about a guy with a giant wang, and I think you should, too because presales really help authors make a living.

4. Piss missile

Enough about farts; let’s move on to piss. Not really; this is actually about paper airplanes, via my pal Charlie, who designed Wordpecker’s snappy new brand.

I couldn’t find this account anywhere but Instagram - Chicago_Paper_Airplane is run by a guy who wears a neon green balaclava as he tosses paper airplanes out of Chicago buildings while classic rock plays. It’s fun! And mesmerizing! There’s some serious aeronautical wonder happening there.

Here are some recent post captions:

• Make a piss missile with me

• Watch me rip this air biscuit

• Watch this shit whistle go over the highway

You get the idea. It’s very testosterone-fueled, harmless fun, if you’re into that sort of thing, which apparently I am.

5. Skullet

Speaking of testosterone, this portmanteau of “skull” and “mullet” comes from my friend and Wordpecker reader Kris, who texted “a mullet but bald on top” with a picture of Riff Raff, the butler from Rocky Horror Picture Show, lol. A quick Google search for “famous skullets” turned up Kelsey Grammer as Frasier and Benjamin Franklin, LOLLLL.

Share your favorite skullets in the comments!

Leave a comment

6. Frictionmaxxing

Are we nearing the end of calling everything we do “maxxing” yet? I sort of hope so, and yet I do enjoy collecting maxxing varietals, like fibermaxxing (🚽), looksmaxxing, and now frictionmaxxing2.

In her Brooding column for The Cut, Kathryn Jezer-Morton writes, “In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing.” It’s a reference to the tension between tech broligarchs promising that their seemingly benign apps will remove the “friction” (e.g., effort, discomfort) from our lives and how that effort actually benefits us as humans.

Friction-maxxing is not simply a matter of reducing your screen time, or whatever. It’s the process of building up tolerance for “inconvenience” (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) — and then reaching even toward enjoyment. And then, it’s modeling this tolerance, followed by enjoyment and humor, for our kids.

Jezer-Morton makes some good observations about how technology is removing the friction of deep thought and social interaction, and ponders what this means for parents and their children. Some suggestions she offers to bring friction back into our lives include: Stop sharing your location, quit using ChatGPT, and invite people over even when your house isn’t clean. More examples: a friend of mine started buying CDs again, and I’m considering both buying vinyl records again and breaking out my 40-year-old Minolta XG-1 film camera.

Share some ways you’re frictionmaxxing (or frictionminning, for that matter):

Leave a comment

Bonus Nuggets

1. Asshole Bird of the Month: January 2026

ABOTM is an affectionate name for stories of birds behaving like the unrepentant tiny dinosaurs that they are. This month’s award goes to this limber screech owl, who somehow got inside a locked car and made themselves at home on a headrest. It’s really worth clicking through to the article to see how tiny this owl is in someone’s hand.

If this happened to me you would never, ever hear the end of it. 🦉 I would make a screechie choosing my vehicle my entire personality.

2. Catherine O’Hara: NOOOOOO! 💔

I was gutted by the news of Catherine O’Hara’s death last week at 71. As a tiny kid in the ‘70s I used to stay up late to watch her on SCTV with John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Andrea Martin, and Dave Thomas. She always knew how to take comedy one step further and still land it. Check out the gorgeous portrait the NYT used for her obituary. I’m gonna be sad about this loss for a long time.

3. The 2026 Chicago snowplow naming contest 🚫🧊

Via the excellent Block Club Chicago (emphasis mine):

Among over 13,300 submissions to Chicagoshovels.org, “Abolish ICE” made up over 9,200 — or about 70 percent — of the entries, according to a list of submissions obtained through a public records request. The name also got an early nod of approval from Mayor Brandon Johnson last month.

4. Relatedly: We said what we said.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.

Hello there!

If you’re feeling disoriented and wondering where your latest edition of New-To-Me Phrases went, it’s still here, but with a fresh new look:

How we got here

I’ve never really loved the name New-To-Me Phrases, but struggled to come up with anything better (cobbler’s kids, yada yada). When I started working on a book proposal based on this project, I decided to finally set my mind to rebranding, batting around ideas with some writer and marketing pals. One day, during a back-and-forth texting session with my brilliant, multi-talented friend Tonya, she sent Wordpecker and the brainstorming screeched to a halt as we pondered it.

It rang like a bell through my bones, and it made me laugh. We had a name!

Next, I hired my friend Charlie Trotter to help me with visual branding. The little guy above is based on the red-bellied woodpecker and I LOVE HIM. Charlie is mad talented—a fine artist, Squarespace designer, graphic designer, and I think he’s also some kind of super-spy who will spill state secrets if you feed him chicken pot pie.

And here we are. You’ll still get a batch of fresh phrases every Sunday (we are going back to weekly, baby!) from yours truly. I’m also working on some fun new perks for paid subscribers, so stay tuned!

Where to find Wordpecker:

• New URL: heywordpecker.com

• Instagram: @heywordpecker

• Threads: @heywordpecker

• Bluesky: @wordpecker

This week’s phrases

This week, we have more than one political phrase, because (repeat after me) making fun of the horrors is how we cope with the horrors. It also makes insecure dictator wannabe types big mad, which delights me personally, and maybe you, too. We also have arboreal pyrotechnics!

Let’s get to it!

1. Minnesota NoICE

I came up with this phrase the other day as a play on Minnesota nice, thinking it would make a great protest sign or t-shirt. Turns out I’m not the only one:

• There’s a community directory going by this name - love seeing neighbors helping neighbors

• Local artist Ricardo Levins Morales is selling Minnesota NoICE buttons

• Boop the Void (what a great brand!) is selling these cute stickers, with all profits donated to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee

Awesome side note: America’s government teacher Sharon McMahon has also raised over $150,000 for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota by selling merch based on a comment from a hater who called her an “unhinged Minnesota lunatic.” I got myself a hat that reads: RADICALIZED BY BASIC HUMAN DECENCY. Get yours here - she also made unhinged lunatic merch for every state, lol.

I am seeing influencers become increasingly sick and tired of haters clogging up their DMs, sending insults, threats, and violent AI images featuring their likenesses, and they are starting to fight back by outing and shaming these keypad cowards. We love to see it!

2. Fled Cruz

My friend Mike from Austin, Texas shared this one when news broke that Ted Cruz was, once again, leaving his state before a major storm was due. If you’re not aware, Cruz was dragged on social in 2021 for vacationing in Cancun while his constituents suffered through hurricane Beryl.

Another Texas friend posted this on Instagram, lol:

People are also having fun with Cruz cruising on Reddit:

• “If Ted flees, it’s about to freeze.”

• “If Ted Cruz sees his shadow on a Delta flight you're in for 2 days of sleet.”

• “Ted Cruz should be added to to list of weather predicting rodents.”

3. Bovino Bitch Fund

If you don’t know who fun-size Nazi cosplayer Greg Bovino is, congratulations. The man Lyz Lenz called Great Value General Sherman is the current head of US border patrol. Bovino was most recently in the news spreading a false narrative about the January 24th murder of VA nurse Alex Pretti by ICE agents, which was captured on video from multiple angles and appears to have gone down in a far different way than Pocket Himmler would have us believe.

Look, I know this news is really heavy and spinning a lot of people I know into despair. There’s no void big enough to scream into.

But consider this: As of this writing, Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket has raised $18.5K for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) for calling Greg Bovino a bitch:

After months of watching this pathetic man tour around the country like a war tourist, I had enough. So I posted on Bluesky, “I’ve seen enough: Greg Bovino is a bitch.” I quickly received a Venmo for it, as has become tradition when I lob the b-word at a Trump lackey, but then it occurred to me this could be a great vehicle for fundraising to help the people hurt most by Bovino and his soldiers. A few minutes later I got another Venmo with the note “Bitch Bovino fund.” And thus the Greg Bovino Bitch Fund Benefiting Immigrant Rights in Minnesota was born.

4. Exploding trees

I had to cover this one given the frigid, snowy, icy weather much of the country is experiencing. Last week, I saw this post making the rounds - nice to see someone with a sense of humor at the helm of Kwik Trip’s socials:

Except for a three-year stint in Colorado, I’ve spent my entire life in the Midwest and have never heard of trees exploding due to extreme cold. Turns out “exploding” is a bit of an exaggeration: in below-zero temperatures, tree bark can crack open or limbs can snap off. Now that I’ve heard of. In fact, on a recent hike with a friend, we saw a pine tree that broke off mid-trunk and landed in some brush nearby:

While an “exploding” tree can make a loud sound—“like a gunshot,” according to Virginia Tech professor and tree physiology specialist1 John Seiler)—it’s not an explosion in the way we think of them in the movies. Though really, at this point, trees deciding to blow up rather than remain in this timeline wouldn’t surprise me.

Bonus Nugget

1. Sentient beef!

Scientists discovered a cow in Austria that uses a tool to scratch her back. Her name is Veronika, if you must know. This is a big deal in terms of how we view bovine intelligence, reports 404 Media:

Tool use is a sign of advanced cognition that has been observed in many animals, including primates, orcas, and birds. But cows, with their vacant expressions and docile nature, have been overlooked as likely tool users, except as a joke in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons.

Here’s a link to the full study, with video of Ms. Veronika making distinct choices to use either end of a broom to scratch different body parts. I LOVE HER.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious!

Call your senators and reps every. single. day. Even the ones who won’t listen; they still take the temperature of what matters to constituents, and the more scared they are about that, the better.

Organized gangs of wine moms | A LaCroix of a thought | A big blubbering piss baby | Raccoon biologist | Belt of Venus

The Phrases, With Context

This is the last edition of NTMP before I make some exciting changes. Here’s a little teaser to look forward to:

In a word: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

I can’t wait to show you more!

But first! It’s time for the annual NTMP reader poll!

I started this project on Substack on January 30, 2022. That means we’re coming up on the fourth anniversary of phrase-gathering. Whether you’re new here or have been along for this ride the entire time, I appreciate you being here.

As I’ve shared in previous editions, I’m writing a book proposal based on New-To-Me Phrases, and I could use your help. I’ve created a reader poll because knowing what readers like you enjoy informs what I offer here. The poll should take less than 10 minutes to complete:

I'm in! Take me to the poll.

I also brought you some phrases.

This week, we have three phrases about fluids (eww!), a cool job, and skyline fashion.

Let’s get to it!

1. Organized gangs of wine moms

In the wake of Rebecca Good’s murder by the federal government earlier this month, a Fox News anchor used this phrase to characterize Minnesota protesters. Personally, I prefer ChiAntifa, which I found via Lyz Lenz of Men Yell at Me.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent newsletter segment, the must-read Dingus of the Week. It explains why instead of mocking moms, ICE and the politicians who enable them should be scared of us:

Listen, moms are tired. We had the whole pandemic. We deal with school shootings; we organized during the George Floyd protests. Now there are multiple intersecting economic crises; you are taking away our health care; you’re attacking our trans homies — and you want to roll into the Twin Cities and kidnap our neighbors? We didn’t have a fuck left to give anyway, and if we did, it wouldn’t go to you.

2. A LaCroix of a thought

This one comes via one of my kids. A coworker was struggling to conjure a word for something and said they were having “a LaCroix of a thought.”

Accurate and a burn on LaCroix1? Perfection.

3. A big blubbering piss baby

I’ve long believed that New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie is one of the finest writers of our era. His sharp political insights are a grounding force during this time of great turmoil.

I also enjoy the dissonance between the gravitas of Bouie’s writing and the delight he shows when when insulting members of the Trump administration. He does it often enough that I almost want to start compiling them.

If you need a mood lifter, watch Bouie call White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a “big blubbering piss baby,” as a little treat. It happens at around 2:15:

4. Raccoon biologist

Raise your hand if you knew raccoon biologists existed. I did not! When a study last year claimed that raccoons are becoming more domesticated, raccoon biologist Lochlan O’Neil posted a video debunking it.

According to her website, O’Neil is currently researching the critically endangered pygmy raccoon in Cozumel, Mexico. I would love to learn more about what that involves, and I’m filing this one under “cool jobs.”f

5. Belt of Venus

I found this phrase via Bill Davison’s . Belt of Venus occurs before sunrise or after sunset, when a pinkish glow appears above the horizon. Also known as antitwilight, it’s created by the reflection of sunlight in the atmosphere. Here’s a good explainer from BBC Sky at Night. The name has nothing to do with the planet Venus, but rather the snazzy belt the Roman goddess and her Greek counterpart Aphrodite are known for.

Bonus Bits: Ways to support people in Minneapolis

2026 has been one hell of a year so far. I know many of us are reeling from the news (understatement) and want to find ways to help. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Writers understand the power and beauty of words, and Garrett Bucks of is no exception. He created a beautiful way to send messages of support to protesters in Minnesota. Send yours here and see examples here.

2. Joyce Uptown Food Shelf gets food to people who are afraid to go out amid theh government terror campaign in Minneapolis.

3. Stand With Minnesota is a mutual aid group defending communities against ICE.

4. I know we’ve been hearing this over and over and it feels like nothing changes, but call your senators and reps to tell them that you don’t want ICE shooting women in the face, tear gassing family minivans, dragging disabled people out of their cars, detaining US citizens, and otherwise terrorizing neighborhoods. It may not result in any action but our reps need to know how their constituents feel, and hearing from enough people can and should make them nervous. They all want to be reelected, after all. As I keep saying, “It may not be much, but it’s not nothing.”

That’s it for this week! The next time you see NTMP in your inbox or around the internets, things will look and feel different, in completely awesome ways. Stay tuned!