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Preantepenultimate Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, (because they aren’t actually true), gathered at great personal risk of, psycholinguistic harm from actual student papers by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira This 67th collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them. On Linguistic Structuralism. Structuralist linguistics analyses sentences in structures, linguistically speaking. Structuralist linguistics is structuralist because it studies language in depth, even the simplest ... [ more ]
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XI — The SpecGram LingNerds discuss how vowels control your brain, and whether toddlers listen to themselves, or are just stupid. They also investigate more Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics with guest Sheri Wells-Jensen, and discuss their futurological visions for English. ... [ listen ]
Unproven Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, (because they aren’t actually true), gathered at great personal risk of, psycholinguistic harm from actual student papers by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira This 60th collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them. Fieldwork Project II— Reporting Fieldwork. On the use of two discourse particles in a local variety of English. One of our informants works in the Hospitality Profession. From our research, it was exhibited that ... [ more ]
Speculative Grammarian Merchandise. Introduction. In order to lend a hand to our good friends and steadfast supporters over at the Linguist List during their 2006 fund drive, we prepared a small selection of limited edition SpecGram merchandise, including T-shirts, stickers and magnets. Originally these items were only available as prizes awarded as part of the Linguist List fund drive. In 2012, several of the SpecGram editors suffered from a rare form of collective frontal lobe damage, which made it seem like a good idea to put together a SpecGram book. The result in 2013 was The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. In 2014, Editor Mikael Thompson entered a deep fugue ... [ more ]
Nursery Rhymes From Linguistics Land. Yune O. Hūū II. Continuing in the great tradition of Stepfather Goose, the following nursery rhymes are presented to ensure their preservation for future generations of young linguists. P’op’ Goes The Ejective! All around the agreement bush, The noun chased the adjéctive. The noun thought ’twas all in fun. P’op’! goes the ejective!, A penny to pay the undergrad, For judgments introspective. That’s the way the money goes. P’op’! goes the ejective!, If John kissed Mary habitually, The action’s imperfective, That’s the way the aspect goes. P’op’! goes the ejective!, Half a pound of subjective case, ... [ more ] 
Speculative Grammarian Youth Research Focus is proud to bring you the finest language-related research by the world’s school-aged youth. Grey Duck or Goose?, Mapping variation in a children’s game in Minnesota. Fifth Grade Science Fair Project, by Sven Slater and Ollie Bickford, J. O. Nelson Public School, St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA. Research Question. Last year, a new kid named Tyler P. joined our fourth grade class. Tyler was from Illinois or some other southern state, and she told us that down there kids play “duck, duck, goose,” instead of “duck, duck, grey duck” like we do here in Minnesota. We thought this was strange, even for the South, but then we ... [ more ]
SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]
November 10, 1977 Dear Lovers of Linguistic Levity and Ludicrosity: Consider the following sentences: 1), *, John publishes book. 2), *, IU Linguistics Club is publisher. 3), *, You want to get publisher, isn’t it?, 4), Colorless green ideas get published. 5), ?, And George does so too. As the attentive reader will have noticed, there are no articles in 1-5. Therefore we propose a rule of ARTICLE-INSERTION. This rule, however, requires independent motivation. Now consider the following: A. The IU Linguistics Club will publish an unheralded and uncalled-for collection of linguistic humor in May 1978. B. Implicit in this approach is the notion that you must provide input to the aforementioned ... [ more ]
Extra Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, (because they aren’t actually true), gathered at great personal risk of, psycholinguistic harm from actual student papers, by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira This 15th collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them. On genres. In graffiti, a vandal through his ingenuity of creating new words may change the meaning and compress its meaning in language play. Graffiti are found on the walls of places like public lavatories as they are illegal ... [ more ]
SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CXCV, Number 3; February 2026, C HIEF C AT H ERDER &, A RBITER OF THE L AST W ORD, Trey Jones, O RDER OF THE, S PECULATIVE P SAMMETICOI, Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson, Tim Pulju, Bill Spruiell, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CXCV, No 3, H EAD OF L EARNING, L INGUISTICS T HROUGH, S ATIRE AND P UNS, Jonathan Downie, S YNTACTICO- P OET &, U NDER- E DITOR OF, U NDER- E DITING, Deak Kirkham, S ENIOR P UZZLING, T EST P ILOT, Vincent Fish, K EEPER OF THE, E DITORIAL T EA C ADDY, Pete Bleackley, A SSOCIATE D EPUTY, A SSISTANT S UB- M ANAGER, OF S ATIRICAL S UCCESS, Luca Dinu, O RTHOGRAPHER- A T- L ARGE, Daniel Swanson, D ILETTANTE E MERITUS, Tel ... [ more ]
Psammeticus Motors, www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, Psammeticus Motors proudly presents... The Lingo!, A car designed for linguists... by linguists., ... The PM Lingo is the first affordable luxury automobile ever designed for linguists, by linguists. No one knows what a real linguist wants and needs in a car like the folks at Psammeticus Motors—more than just practical yet stylish transportation, the Lingo makes an important statement that only other linguists can fully understand—just like the best academic treatises. Stylish: The Lingo’s retro-chic typewriter-inspired body styling stands apart from the herd of cars driven ... [ more ]
A Preliminary Field Guide to Linguists, Part Two. Athanasious Schadenpoodle, University of Nueva Escranton. Introduction The previous installment, dealing with Neoplatonicus and Functionalisticus, comprised a brief discussion of the less problematic genera in the family--less problematic in the sense that their grouping is not contested among those working in this area. This section will deal with two groups whose taxonomic status is a matter of quite some debate; to a large extent, the groupings presented should be taken as tentative, and done largely for the sake of organized presentation (cf. Gnibbes 1998 and Czechzindemeyl 1999 for representative positions on grouping of these ... [ more ]
HanjieLinguru III. ... Key phrase: подвод воздуха для охлаждения реактивного конуса, Б = # of в (in the key phrase), Д = # of o, Ж = # of ж, И = # of д, Л = # of я, Ц = # of к, Ъ = # of а, Я = # of г, з, п, р, с, and т, Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Tokyo. After having been AWOL for several months (we finally located them on a beach in Biarritz), the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™ are back with their noses shackled to the grindstone for another installment of HanjieLinguru. HanjieLinguru is a simple extension of the traditional Hanjie form, but with just enough linguistics ... [ more ]
Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part ж—The Trouble with NLP. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Please review previously discussed materials as needed. Now that that is taken care of, let us consider why Natural Language Processing (or, its alter-ego, Computational Linguistics) has not been the resounding success regularly predicted by the NLP faithful: We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were hungry/over-ripe. Time/Fruit flies like a(n) arrow/banana. pretty little girl’s school crying computational linguist Up next: Lexicostatistics vs Glottochronology. References, Baeza-Yates, Ricardo and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto (1999). Modern Information ... [ more ] 
Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part ז—Synchronic vs. Diachronic. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. If you have fallen behind, try to catch up. For those who are caught up, a simple explanation of the difference between synchronic contrast and diachronic contrast, illustrated with examples from a couple of the beautiful Romance languages—Spanish and its ancestor, Latin: Synchronic ... Diachronic ... Up next: The Trouble with NLP. References, Barðdal, Jóhanna H. (2001). Case in Icelandic: A Synchronic, Diachronic and Comparative Approach. Blevins, Juliette. (2004). Evolutionary Phonology: The Emergence of Sound ... [ more ]
The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. The SpecGram Archive Elves™ have undertaken a project to digitize and share a sheaf of early 20th century SpecGram propaganda posters, which were used during the Great Linguistic War and the Second Linguistic War to encourage linguists everywhere to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humor during those trying times. We provide the digitized posters here for you to enjoy, retrospect on, and share. Select a poster to see a higher quality image, and for links to share on social media, to email friends, and to view or download the highest quality version of the image. ... Read SpecGram Every Month! ... [ more ]
Now Available from Speculative Grammarian Press. The latest title in our series Books We Take a Loss on for Tax Purposes . This slim yet tedious volume crams over 1000 years of ancient Roman history into more than 100 carelessly researched, poorly written, crudely illustrated pages. But it could be worse: it could be over 200 pages! Here’s what people are saying about Tim Pulju’s The History of Rome: “Not interested.” —Ronald S. Oxford, England, “Haven’t read it.” —Michael Ivanovitch R. New Haven, Connecticut, “Never heard of it.” —Arnaldo M. Turin, Italy, “Proof that some writers of history are neither ... [ more ]
ACADEMIC NEWS. NEW CONCORD, OH. (wire services) Academicians nationwide have turned their eyes on tiny Muskingum College here, awaiting the outcome of what could be the most significant contract negotiations in the history of education. Attention is centered on Muskingum Professor of English Alex Leonhardt—internationally known for his extensive work on reader-response criticism—who appears to have successfully argued that the clause “one guaranteed parking space in Lot F” may be interpreted to mean “fully-paid sabbatical leave every other year.” Administrators here and elsewhere are expressing concern that they may find it difficult to replace the huge percentage of ... [ more ]
Discourse Gender in Hakka Creole. Keith Slater, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC. INTRODUCTION: Over the last few years, Hakka Creole (Taiwan) has gained considerable attention in linguistic circles, due to several truly strange features of the language. This article presents details of yet another such surprising discovery—one which may well revolutionize the way linguists deal with texts of substantial size in the future. THEORETICAL PREREQUISITES: (Editor’s note: Mr. Slater’s article was too long. Therefore, we cut out the part about theoretical prerequisites entirely. If, as a result, you have trouble understanding the rest of the article, too bad. If you really want to know what he said here, ... [ more ]
Psammeticus Press www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, BOOKS, SERIES, and MORE The following valuable volumes, spectacular series, and interesting items have been released with pride by Psammeticus Press, an academic publishing house founded in honor of the first and purest of linguistic inquirers: one might criticize his methods, but who could quibble with his results? Follow the links below to learn more about these fabulous books and excellent series, each destined to become a classic in the field. Warehouse Moving Sale We’ve lost the lease on our warehouse and anything we can’t sell we have to move—or rent interns from Speculative Grammarian to do it—and that’s expensive! Help us out and buy a ... [ more ]
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Last updated Apr. 19, 2026.