Good discussions at NWAV

Having a good time at virtual New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV), one of my favorite sociolinguistics conferences. I had two presentations: an invited panel discussion with my co-author Paul De Decker in Newfoundland about our work on remote audio data collection for vowel analysis, and a poster with my grad student Molly Landers about pre-lateral mergers in Oklahoma, where words like pull are pronounced like pole or pool, and words like dull sound like dole.
    It's a challenge to fit live morning sessions and watching pre-recorded talks into an otherwise normal mid-semester week, but I've decided I like the chance to mull things over a bit more compared to everything being packed into three full days in person. Plus, I can pause and go back over the videos and pore over posters before or after live Q&A sessions. The posters were presented live on Gather.Town, which is the best virtual poster format I've experienced over the many different options conferences have tried during the pandemic. And live Q&A worked very well on Zoom, which we all know how to use by now!