Will Styler
Asst. Teaching Professor of Linguistics at UC San Diego
Director of UCSD's Computational Social Science Program
Writings and Archived Blog Posts
For nearly 10 years, I ran a language blog called ‘Notes from a
Linguistic Mystic’. 
Although I shut the (long-dormant) site down in 2017, both in an effort to simplify my online life and because some of the early posts were very early in my learning, I’ve saved some of the best, most helpful, and most popular content below, organized by topic and then date. Hope you enjoy!
Regularly Updated Guides
Because they’ve proven very popular and contain potentially useful information, these posts are kept updated:
- Using IPA fonts with Mac OS X: The Comprehensive Guide
- What kinds of jobs can a linguist get?
- A Phonetician’s Software Toolkit
- Pro-tips for running linguistic and psychological experiments
- Using Praat for Linguistic Research
Archived Linguistic Posts
- Of Google Translate and Rugged Anatomy (2013)
- Tacticool Crenellations (2013)
- Redefining Wellness - The language of Colorado Marijuana dispensary names (2013)
- The R Word and the Euphemism Treadmill (2012)
- Phonology is a lot like High School, really… (2011)
- The Alchemical origin of “Hermetically Sealed” (2007)
- im in mai blog, postin’ bout cats: The Cuteness of Grammatical errors (2007)
- im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology (2007)
Archived Phonetic Posts
- What’s your dissertation about, anyways? (2015)
- Coming Full Circle: Articulatory Setting and Point of resonance (2012)
- Pine Thugs: A useful neologism (2012)
- Doing Terrible things to Speech Recognition Software (2012)
- Scuse me while I mix up voiced and voiceless-unaspirated stops (2011)
- Unaspirated T’s from the mouth of Babes (2008)
- Your New Phonetic Phriend: The Velar Nasal’ (2007)
- The glottal stop: your new Phonetic Phriend (2007)
Archived Posts on the International Phonetic Alphabet
- Transcribe one thing every day that scares you (2015)
- Converting Unicode IPA to TIPA for LaTeX documents, easily (2012)
- What’s the difference between Schwa (/ə/) and Wedge (/ʌ/)? (2012)
- The IPA Translation App: a wonderful impossibility (2007)
- Theta and Eth: Your New Phonetic Friends (2007)
Archived Product Reviews
- The Contour Design Rollermouse Red Review (2015)
- Ergonomic Keyboard Mega-Review (2015)
- Keyboard Ergnomics and Kinesis Freestyle Solo Mac Review (2013)
- Contour Design Rollermouse Free 2 and Evoluent Vertical Mouse 4 Reviews (2013)
- GeekDesk Max Adjustable Height Desk Review (2013)
- A Speech Geek’s Review of Dragon Dictate 3 (2012)
Archived Technology Posts
- How I lost my dissertation files (despite 7 different backup plans) (2015)
- How to write a dissertation in LaTeX using Markdown (2015)
- Building a Website using Pandoc, Markdown, and Static HTML (2015)
- Using the HTK and the Penn Phonetics Lab Forced Aligner on Mac OS X (2014)
- “In the cloud”, or on somebody else’s computer? (2011)
- Using Festival TTS on OS X (2011)
Archived Miscellaneous Writing
- Snake Oil Cryptography Contest Submission (2015)
- Dear Mr. Morrow (2015)
- Dear Sra. Hinchey (2015)
- “I sure wish I was driving this road in a city bus”: A meditation on the motorhome (2014)
- Peer Review and the Web of Trust (2012)
- Same instrument, different acoustical soul (2012)
- FLICK BAD KERNING (2012)
- The Halls of Madness (2006)