Bōard Gam̄es for̄ Linḡuists—Macron̄ Bradleȳ SpecGram Vol CLXXV, No 3 Contents

A Speculative Scavenger Hunt

The SpecGram Puzzle Elves™

Much fascinating information has been published in the pages of Speculative Grammarian over the centuries, but it can, on occasion, be a challenge to find. This is the challenge that the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™ put before you now. Identify, if you can, the articles in which the following things can be found. You will need wit, guile, lateral thinking, linguistic knowledge, and an insight into the strange minds of the various shady characters who produce this journal.

  1. The Roman alphabet as featural code.

  2. A Spaniard sensitive to cold.

  3. My self-referential wallet.

  4. A cat with many markings and none.

  5. An essential for the glossopoetic kitchen.

  6. The article that found its author a wife.

  7. Murder, magic, and Mongolian.

  8. Monsters Who hate high back rounded vowels.

  9. Golfers confused by homophony.

  10. A case of two going out irregularly.

This is going to be a difficult puzzle, so feel free to submit your solution even if you haven’t found half of the answers. And to sweeten the pot, the SpecGram Anti-Hoarding Guidelines are suspended this month, and the grand prize is an old copy of Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames that we just found at the bottom of the office ball pit (the one next to the chocolate fountain, not the one by the indoor half pipe).

If you think you’ve figured any of the answers submit them to the editors of SpecGram by March 15, 2016, and you could win a prize. Solutions and winners will be announced in the April issue.



The solution to last month’s puzzle, Mix & Match †, are provided here. The nine 9-letter words from the first puzzle are: euphemism, unrounded, shortened, victimize, unlaconic, triteness, satirical, univocacy, necessary; and the three additional words are: proclitic, hortative, mnemonics. For the second puzzle, the nine words are: apparatus, phonetics, polysemic, anybodies, masonwork, steradian, dimension, loincloth, unavenged; and the three additional words are: phonation, polysemia, resonance. Each of the puzzlemeisters below will receive some much envied SpecGram merch:

Kevin JeffriesMartin FindellPatrick Niedzielski

In addition, the following puzzlers have achieved the everlasting glory that comes with an honorable mention:

Gretchen McCullochKeith SlaterLisa CoxTeresa GallowayThorsten SchröterTom RobertsVirginia Bouchard

Bōard Gam̄es for̄ LinḡuistsMacron̄ Bradleȳ
SpecGram Vol CLXXV, No 3 Contents