eosophobica

[eosophobica]

What is a ‘wug’?

If you’ve been to linguist tumblr (lingblr), you might have stumbled upon this picture of a funny little bird or read the word ‘wug’ somewhere. But what exactly is a ‘wug’ and where does this come from?

The ‘wug’ is an imaginary creature designed for the so-called ‘wug test’ by Jean Berko Gleason. Here’s an illustration from her test:

“Gleason devised the Wug Test as part of her earliest research (1958), which used nonsense words to gauge children’s acquisition of morphological rules‍—‌for example, the “default” rule that most English plurals are formed by adding an /s/, /z/ or /ɨz/ sound depending on the final consonant, e.g., hat–hats, eye–eyes, witch–witches. A child is shown simple pictures of a fanciful creature or activity, with a nonsense name, and prompted to complete a statement about it:

This is a WUG. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two ________.

Each “target” word was a made-up (but plausible-sounding) pseudoword, so that the child cannot have heard it before. A child who knows that the plural of witch is witches may have heard and memorized that pair, but a child responding that the plural of wug (which the child presumably has never heard) is wugs (/wʌgz/, using the /z/ allomorph since “wug” ends in a voiced consonant) has apparently inferred (perhaps unconsciously) the basic rule for forming plurals.

The Wug Test also includes questions involving verb conjugations, possessives, and other common derivational morphemes such as the agentive -er (e.g. “A man who ‘zibs’ is a ________?”), and requested explanations of common compound words e.g. “Why is a birthday called a birthday?“ Other items included:

This is a dog with QUIRKS on him. He is all covered in QUIRKS. What kind of a dog is he? He is a ________ dog.

This is a man who knows how to SPOW. He is SPOWING. He did the same thing yesterday. What did he do yesterday? Yesterday he ________.

(The expected answers were QUIRKY and SPOWED.)

Gleason’s major finding was that even very young children are able to connect suitable endings‍—‌to produce plurals, past tenses, possessives, and other forms‍—‌to nonsense words they have never heard before, implying that they have internalized systematic aspects of the linguistic system which no one has necessarily tried to teach them. However, she also identified an earlier stage at which children can produce such forms for real words, but not yet for nonsense words‍—‌implying that children start by memorizing singular–plural pairs they hear spoken by others, then eventually extract rules and patterns from these examples which they apply to novel words.

The Wug Test was the first experimental proof that young children have extracted generalizable rules from the language around them, rather than simply memorizing words that they have heard, and it was almost immediately adapted for children speaking languages other than English, to bilingual children, and to children (and adults) with various impairments or from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Its conclusions are viewed as essential to the understanding of when and how children reach major language milestones, and its variations and progeny remain in use worldwide for studies on language acquisition. It is “almost universal” for textbooks in psycholinguistics and language acquisition to include assignments calling for the student to carry out a practical variation of the Wug Test paradigm. The ubiquity of discussion of the wug test has led to the wug being used as a mascot of sorts for linguists and linguistics students.”

Here are some more illustrations from the original wug test:

Sources: 

Wikipedia, All Things Linguistic

[eosophobica]

can we just have, like, any feminist movement whatsoever. did everyone just stop caring?

[eosophobica]

Adult Swim making an unholy amount of sense.

[eosophobica]

#20 + 40 = 60 #7+3 is 10 add the other 5 is 15 #15 and 60 = 75

[eosophobica]

HAPPENING NOW: passover seder from our comrades in columbia's liberated zone/gaza solidarity encampment. this encampment is a profoundly religious space. we've seen muslim protesters praying multiple times a day, a christian communion was held, and multiple jewish prayers/celebrations have taken place. solidarity is a beautiful thing, palestine will be free.🖤🇵🇸

edit: @saffronlesbian was kind enough to make an image description for this post!

[id: a tweet from Arielle Angel @/ArielleLAngel with a photo of a large group of university students, most of whom are wearing surgical or kN95 masks, sit on a large tarp on the ground, inside of the circle formed by several tents. in the middle of the circle is a collection of several containers of food, a protest sign that reads, "pesach means solidarity and liberation" (note: pesach is the hebrew word for passover), and a person kneeling and holding up the seder plate, upon which can prominently be seen a boiled egg and a large orange. the tweet's caption reads, " Explaining the seder plate at the Colombia encampment. These students truly embody the meaning of Passover in their provisional seder and their commitment to liberation." /end id.]

[eosophobica]

Petition to change the name of Mabon to Mheillea

Why???

Mabon was named arbitrarily

Aiden Kelly says it wasn’t arbitrarily but his reasoning seems arbitrary to everyone else, it’s basically just that he found an obscure Welsh god named Mabon ap Modron who had been kidnapped as a child similar to how Persephone had been

the name Mabon (nor its namesake deity) has nothing to do with fall

the name was picked in the 1970s there’s no real historical ties to the equinox (which has been celebrated for millennia)

Mheillea is literally Manx for Harvest and it pops up in Manx harvest celebrations around the equinox (like the holiday Yn Mheillea)

Manx history doesn’t get enough love or recognition in neopagan circles (especially compared to the Irish names that half of the sabbats are named from)

It’s a very pretty name that shouldn’t be left to die out (MELL-ee-uh)

Unlike Mabon, Mheillea is a historically-relevant name already tied to autumn and the equinox

Will this catch on????

Probably not, i have no reach

Will that stop me???

no :)

anyways i might even start tagging things as Mheillea instead of Mabon on here even though that might be confusing to other people who are new here. We’ll see if i stick to it or give into peer pressure.

[eosophobica]

reading about guinea pig habitats and it's telling me guinea pigs need regular social interaction or they get sad but they also need a place to retreat to when they're overwhelmed and they don't like loud noises and honestly i think i might be a guinea pig

[eosophobica]

So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

[eosophobica]

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

#oh my god this is so right

[eosophobica]

Before the cost of living crisis gets any worse someone needs to just snap & restart the Whiteboys

[eosophobica]

Guys, Guys….

I just think it would be kind of neat, if we were to…

Narumitsu sweep.

Here : :)

Thanks

[eosophobica]

What is your favorite animal?

to hang out with, guinea pigs. they're great. i find them weirdly calming. and i love that baby guinea pigs look exactly like normal guinea pigs but tiny. 10/10, no notes.

i also really enjoy penguins, but i don't get to hang out with them much. ditto owls.

[eosophobica]

[eosophobica]

we DO grow old and happy. btw.

[eosophobica]

[eosophobica]

he quit the next day

[eosophobica]

u know what makes me cry..... that one van gogh quote about life changing for the better..... “many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. and it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘what do i care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ yes, evil often seems to surpass good. but then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. one morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. and so i must still have hope.” yeah..... Crying....