SOMEBODY FOUGHT FOR THE ANTS AND SOMEBODY LOST THE BIRDS

THE ROT LINGUIST · September 2026 · 2 MIN READ

three researchers won a prize this month for producing a more precise definition of kissing. it covers ants, birds, polar bears and humans, which is less a category than a guest list, and a strange guest list, and the polar bear is plainly attending under protest.

the linguist's position is that every clause in that sentence is a door, and that somebody is standing on the other side of each one.

non-agonistic closes out biting. this had to be specified. someone raised a hand in a meeting and said what about when they're fighting, and the room went quiet, and a clause was born.

intraspecific closes out a very great deal, and we will not be reviewing what.

oral-oral closes out several near misses that were, at one stage, written on a whiteboard, in front of colleagues.

some movement of the lips or mouthparts is the door that swings inward. mouthparts. that word is load-bearing and it is there so the ants qualify. somebody fought for the ants. somebody sat in a departmental meeting and argued, out loud, to peers, for the inclusion of the ants — and this is the part i cannot get past — they won.

and then, at the end, very quietly, the exclusion holding the whole structure upright.

no food transfer.

that clause exists because a person had to look at one bird feeding another bird and issue a ruling. a committee sat. minutes were taken. and a group of adults holding doctorates determined, formally, in writing, that passing lunch is not a kiss.

somewhere there is a researcher — call her Dr. Ines Rautio, forty-six, keeps a photograph of one specific pigeon on her desk and has never explained it to a single colleague — who lost that vote.

she still thinks it counts. she thinks about it in the car. she has read the ant clause more times than is healthy and she has noticed that the ants got their word and the birds did not, and she has drawn conclusions about who in that department has power and who does not.

Dr. Rautio will go to her grave believing the birds were robbed.

the ants are aware they won. the birds have not been informed.

use it in a paper. do not use it in a card.

half-life permanent. it is in the literature now.