SpecGram Vol CLXXIX, No 2 Contents Letters to the Editor

You Win Some, You Lose Some*

A Letter from Associate Editor Mikael Thompson

As part of Speculative Grammarian’s ongoing commitment to public service to the best of our abilities, on 1 March 2017 Editor-in-Chief Trey Jones signed a contract with the [REDACTED] for delivery of a new super-uncrackable secret language for confidential government communications. Speculative Grammarian is pleased to announce delivery of the language today. “The trouble with many codes is they are, like Chomskyanism, incorrigibly anglocentric. By not basing our code on English, we have made brave advances into the world of the future,” Jones announced at a press conference in the lower middle-upper halls of SpecGram Towers. When asked to give an example of the new code, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, since it’s uncrackable, there’s no harm in that. —Umm, that wasn’t in the code. It starts now: Eyay wintomay ombay, eshtayay engwalay. Anay erdajivay, eyay ayay elyormay avansuyay ellanay ishtoriayay uday iptografiakray ijay udushtay usay empushtay.” When asked what he had said, Jones replied, “I said it’s huge. Like really huge. Like my, um, our paycheck.”

Unfortunately, in the days since the press conference, the Editor-in-Chief has gone missing. If you believe you may have seen him, Speculative Grammarian asks you to please contact Internal Accounts Supervisor Butch McBastard, the Department of State, the Mafiosaccione Collection Agency, and the law firm of Chisholm Hart and Offen with detailed information. While we are unable to offer monetary rewards of any size until he has provided our clients with certain much-needed pieces of information, we do have a wide selection of refrigerator magnets to suit all tastes and fancies. Please note that as Jones’s only personal effect to go missing is his copy of Donald Topping’s Spoken Chamorro, anyone going to Guam, Rota, or Saipan is hereby asked to keep a close eye out for any suspicious characters speaking even more heavily Spanish-laced Chamorro than Chamorro speakers use, and in a thick Texas accent.



* Determining which happenings qualify as wins and which qualify as losses is left as an exercise for the reader. —Eds.

Letters to the Editor
SpecGram Vol CLXXIX, No 2 Contents