SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXV, Number 4; October 2012, MANAGING EDITOR Trey Jones SENIOR EDITOR Keith Slater EDITOR EMERITUS Tim Pulju Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXV, No 4 CONSULTING EDITORS David J. Peterson Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Daniela Müller Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Cem Bozsahin Florian Breit Jonathan Downie Adam Graham Tel Monks Mary Pearce Callum Robson Mary Shapiro Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL Joey Whitford Stop Voicing Now! ... [ more ]

The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics . For decades, Speculative Grammarian has been the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics—and now it is available in book form—both physical and electronic! We wish we were kidding,¹ but no, seriously, we’ve published a large³ collection of SpecGram articles, along with just enough new material to force obsessive collectors and fans to buy it, regardless of the cost.⁴ From the Introduction: The past twenty-five years have witnessed many changes in linguistics, with major developments in linguistic theory, significant expansion ... [ 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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

A Morphosyntactic, Semantic, Pragmatic, Sociolinguistic and Literary Investigation into the Psycholinguistic Mechanisms Underlying English Puns. Pete Bleackley, Associate Editor. On her website Lang 101¹ my highly steamed^{2, 3} editorial colleague Madalena Cruz-Ferreira prompts: Try now to think about jokes involving structural ambiguity (morphological structure, syntactic form or syntactic function). As before, explain the source of the humour, in an unambiguous manner! While the answer I gave on her website correctly explained the structural ambiguity present in the joke, it was far from an exhaustive analysis of the source of the humour. I here expand on it to present a more ... [ more ]

Bilge Ise Köpeğinden Bahseder. by Artemus Zebulon Pratt, Speculative Grammarian Editor-on-the-Lam. “Your money or your life.” My wife said, “Can we go now? Us two?” He looked them up and down, “Yeah.” “Why the dog?” I asked her. “He has publications, dear.” I shouted, “Come now, you know that Everything’s Edible If You Chew Hard Enough: A Dalmatian’s Daily Affirmations is hardly tenure fodder!” “It’s a publish-or-perish world, dear.” As they strode off I looked at the guy’s gun and said, “That might not work.” He snarled, “Why ... [ more ]

De La SpecGrammatologie . A Letter to Future Historians of Satirical Linguistics, from the Editor-in-Chief, Trey “Jacquey D” Jones. Future SpecGrammologists will debate whether this period in the history of SpecGram is “Early Modern” or “Late Moron” or even “Proto-Interplanetary”—and whether we were titans or pipsqueaks, our scribblings impactful or inconsequential. They will undoubtedly furrow their collective brow as they attempt to decipher the opaque and recalcitrant tea leaves of some future tattered remains of the SpecGram archive and hazard ill-formed guesses at our true meaning and significance. ... [ more ]

The SpecGram Quiz to End All Quizzes. ... Everyone makes Internet quizzes—even your three richest widowed aunts use their mite, if not their might, to bedazzle the gullible and amass those sweet, sweet clicks. So stand aside, ladies, SpecGram is on the ~~make~~ move! There’s a new quiz powerhouse in town, and since we don’t believe in planned obsolescence, you’ll never need nor want another!, Just answer these 17 handy-dandy mutually orthogonal questions to get the answers to all (or at least the 7 most important) of your burning questions. ... [ more ]

The Boustrophedon-Plummerfeld Hypothesis, and Futurological Linguistics. Recently I found myself "fortunate enough to find such occasion" (Pyles & Algeo, P.46) as to weasel the word boustrophedon into a conversation. After having expounded on the many joyous properties of this word, I entreated my fellow conversational participant to remember the word, and attempt to become one of those few and proud who have used it casually in non-academia. In a subsequent discourse with my native English speaking informant, I asked her to recall the illustrious word. Her response was plummerfeld. After a brief laugh at her misrecollection, we considered its cause. This issue has taken up much of my thought and time, and I have ... [ more ]

The Devil’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. by David Krystal, Compiled by Adam Baker. C-command. A f-formal r-relationship m-made n-necessary by an u-unfortunate e-early c-commitment to b-binary t-trees. Computational linguistics. A sub-discipline of linguistics practiced by malicious killjoys who have no regard for the claims and generalizations of others. Consonant. A category of segment often occurring between vowels. See entry for vowel. Glottochronology. A misguided effort to measure the rate of linguistic change objectively. The only ridiculous linguistic theory to date to be widely acknowledged as such. Grammar, Generative. An approach to linguistics ... [ more ]

Change A Little, Change A Lot Challenge. Example Word Pairs. The SpecGram Überlinguistaffen, & Ulfheðnar ber Sarkur. See the introductory article earlier in this issue for all the details, but the word pairs below show a large difference in pronunciation despite only differing by one letter—either added/subtracted or changed. The words are grouped thematically, though somewhat haphazardly. As always, your dialect and/or transcription system may vary. Related Words—often derivational affixes change the stress pattern in a word, causing most or all of the vowels to change: academe, academy, academics, academies, analyses (n.), analyzes (v.), attributes (n.), ... [ more ]

ADVERTISEMENT SpecGram Estates. A Retirement Community By Linguists, For Linguists¹. The second greatest day in the life of a linguist is when they become tenured—the status, the glory, the freedom! The greatest day in the life of a linguist is when they become emeritus—the status, the glory, the freedom! Come and spend your golden years with us at SpecGram Estates; we understand you like no one else does, and we have the accommodation, the community, and the amenities that are just right for you! We all know that different linguists have different expectations of the world. At SpecGram Estates we personalize your retirement experience, creating ... [ more ]

Chomskadamus Predicts The Future. A Letter Channeled through Editor-at-Large Jonathan van der Meer. The scene: a darkened, cavernous lecture hall. Most of the seats are empty. A stodgy, inconsequential professor pedantically drones on and on while stumbling around the front of the room. None of the students are really paying attention, and a few even snore gently in the front row. This is Linguistics 101. Suddenly, the professor pauses mid-“morphosyntax” transfixed by an unnatural shaft of light stabbing through a window. He seems to gain stature and presence as he begins to speak, loudly and with force, in an unspeakably ancient and unutterably eldritch tongue, which, to understand even a syllable, ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear SpecGram, I’m going to be traveling to the decadent continent of Europe soon, and I’ve heard a lot about their loose morals and wanton ways. I’ve also heard about something called “language contact”. Could that happen to me on my trip? Should I be worried? How worried should I be? A. ’Murica, San Antone, Tejas, USA, (USA! USA! USA!) ... Sehr geehrter Mssr. Yanquí For many years, linguists have been aware of the phenomenon of language contact. This is normally seen as a natural act in which two consensual language families come together by the union of two of their members to produce morphological offspring. However, due to changes in phonemic ... [ more ]

Draw Me a Linguist. Aster E. O’Gnosis and Margo Llicso. Much has been made recently in certain circles of the stereotypical views children have of scientists, and how those views are changed after paying a visit to CERN—all reflected in the drawings of the children. (Drollette, 2010) The cliché says that children are our future, and the humanizing effect of the CERN visit on children’s perceptions may eventually be parlayed into an increase in the number of young people who choose to pursue science as a profession, which of course results in better enrollment in college courses, and thus more funding for science departments. We figured linguistics could probably use some of that action, too. ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian and SpecGram.com. Our Story. The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields. SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while ... [ more ]

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 book—or twelve! 15% discount on orders over $387.49! Footnoten: Traversal Strategies in Recursive Footnote Numbering Schemes. F. Ußnote. 2003. 463pp. “Explores depth-first vs breadth-first traversal strategies while decrying hierarchical sub-notes as an ‘academic aberration’.” Price: $2. Punctuated Novelty Historical Trends in—and the Trendy History of—Novel Punctuation ... [ more ]

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