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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 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 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 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 ]

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 ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear SpecGram, Your “University News” piece, “Goofy Geeks Grumble, Gripe ’Gainst Gossipy Greek Glyph Goofs” [which discusses the brawl that broke out in the Greek Department of Greek at the Greco-Hellenic University for Greek Studies in Grimsby, UK, over the pronunciation of the names of Greek letters —Eds], once again shows the parochialism of your narrow focus on linguistics. You failed entirely to mention that the altercation spilled over into the maths department, who were debating whether to replace π the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, with τ the ratio of its circumference to its radius, the English literature ... [ more ]

Conversations with the Arch-Linguist. Part One in a Series by Jim Brentley. Note from the Editors: This is the first report from our newly-chartered bureau of investigative reporting, which will, from time to time, supply us with items of linguistic interest which they didn’t want you to know. Assuming, of course, that Jim Brentley is not killed in the line of duty, which is actually quite likely. Note from the Author: I feel a duty to discourage you readers from trying this kind of stuff on your own. You’re likely to get killed, or worse even. The political forces involved in the international linguistic espionage community are always watching and listening, so watch your butt, because on ... [ more ]

Notso Yi, Eidetic Pronouns, Winodanugai, and “Deskwork”. An open letter of criticism that, without proper contextualization, could easily be mistaken for an ad hominem attack or two. It is with a somewhat heavy heart that I commit these thoughts and feelings to paper. I have always been a fan of Slater’s approach to fieldwork—just enough data, bold analyses, and far-reaching conclusions—being that it is so like my own. It has been with much empathy, disappointment, and, at times, even anger that I have read Onesimus’s frequent criticisms of fieldwork and his ridiculous notions of “deskwork” and in particular his recent attack on the Slater ... [ 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 ]

From the Editors. This month’s edition, besides containing the usual collection of intriguing and thought-provoking articles, is also marked by the return from sabbatical of our distinguished linguistic cartoonist, Alessandro Filipepi. Sandro tells us that his enforced stay as a guest of the state of Michigan at their Ionia facility has not blunted the tip of his pen or the sharp edge of his wit. Indeed, so sharp was his wit that we found it necessary to revise his current contribution to cause it to fit with our fraternal attitude to our fellow linguists. Sandro’s cartoon can be found here. Returning to the papers in this week’s edition, we repeat that we find them to be of excellent quality—but ... [ more ]

B A B E L. The Journal of the Worldwide Linguistic Society, Volume I Number 3, September 1990, A Letter from the Publishers. Our many avid readers have no doubt noticed that several months have elapsed since the last appearance of the Journal of the Worldwide Linguistic Society. The reason for this is that we have encountered all sorts of problems around here, all of which can be attributed to the incompetence and willful malfeasance of former editor Tim Pulju. To begin with, he chose the name Babel for our publication without checking to see whether he was stealing any preexisting journal’s appellation. He was. Further, as will become obvious to those readers who read the letters page in the current number, he ... [ more ]

BREAKING NEWS Syntexit: The Facts. R.A.G. Day. In the international event christened “syntexit” 52% of syntacticians voted Tuesday evening to exit linguistics. Despite a strong call to remain a happily contributing part of the noble field, the masses were led by a few vocal members of the opposition (particularly champions of theories dubbed “archaic” “inelegant” or “cognitively demotivated”). His Excellency Professor Cameron Davidson is stepping down from his roles as Royal Syntactician and President of the International Syntax Guild. The good professor will join the faculty at Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Djuda Iscariote not far from Brussels. As leaders of ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear sirs: I must write in to express my genuine pleasure at your taking a proper disciplinary approach to the metastasizing poetastasizing in your letters in the April issue. Above all, I salute your acuity in working to prevent the spread of false and pernicious philosophies of language: “And we had better not hear of you communicating with that awful Montague boy, either!” Quite so. If you don’t nip that bunk in the bud, next thing you know she’ll be claiming that Pascal and English smell as sweet and end her days churning out sonnets by AI under the slogan “Formal grammars for poetic forms” or something. Sincerely, Bill Tridenttremor ... Dear Spear Shaker, We’re ... [ more ]

More Murphy’s Laws for Linguists. Trey Jones & Bill Spruiell. (with much content cribbed from Metalleus) Below are some additional, updated, and eternal instances of Murphy’s Laws for Linguists: The breakthrough you just made will turn out to be something discussed by Pike, Gleason, or Hockett—except that your formulation is less clear, and thus struck you as more profound. Your formulation will strike other linguists as profound too. The formatting you painstakingly constructed for your paper will be scrambled when you send it in, since the recipient will have prevented MS Word from doing a set of 100 different things that is different from your set of 100 things you’ve commanded MS Word not ... [ more ]

The Poets’ Corner. Welcome once again to the poets’ corner, that quiet, comfortable place to which we retire every August in order to take a brief respite from the hurly-burly of linguistics. This year we are proud to present poems from a more varied set of philosophical and poetic backgrounds than ever. As always, we caution that we always print the name signed to the poems we receive, even though we think that often the attestation is inauthentic. Therefore, if you receive credit for a poem not your own, don’t worry, but rather enjoy the compliment. We are truly sorry if the reprinting of any poems below violates any copyright restrictions. It is impossible for us to check every literary magazine published ... [ more ]

Epistola ad Legentes. Dodranscentennial Disclaimerification and Enwarranticization. Speculative Grammarian warrants that its Journal, if used as directed in conjunction with normal human cognitive systems, will substantially achieve the functionality for which it is intended, as outlined in whatever documentation may be distributed with the Journal or may at some future time be produced. However, Speculative Grammarian does not guarantee that the operation of the Journal will be uninterrupted or error-free, nor that even normal human cognitive systems will be impacted in a uniquely humorous or even mildly pleasurable way. In no event shall Speculative Grammarian, its editors or production staff, nor any ... [ more ]

University News. ‘How Are You?’ Set to Be Banned in Three Counties of The UK. by Ruthlessly Roving Reporter Miss Deakina Andrea Kirkhamia The local authorities of three counties of in the north of the UK are set to ban the conversational opener ‘How are you?’ after disturbing new evidence has come to light regarding the potentially highly damaging effects of its ambiguity. Wildonshire, Detshire and Shireshire, all in the north of England, were pilot counties for research into effects of the apparently harmless, indeed neutral-friendly, opening gambit common throughout the English-speaking world: ‘How are you?’ Associate Professor ... [ more ]

Vallelz Noun Class Word Search Solution. provided by the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™. Once again we have been sorely disappointed by our readers, who we had taken to be lazy, shiftless slackers unable and unwilling to undertake any even remotely demanding task. Alas, several readers have actually managed to solve the Vallelz Noun Class Word Search from the; May 2010 issue. The puzzlemeisters below have done so, and will be rewarded appropriately: Bryan Allen • Adam Bernard • Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Adam Hesterberg • Philip Newton • vu-Blank-ɦā The table below lays out the semantic noun classes, definite affixes, and inflected definite forms of the Vallelz nouns from the puzzle: ... [ more ]

The Biological Basis Of Universal Grammar. by Maiya Sershen, Science Editor to the Houston Hitchin' Post (Cambridge, MA)--The strongest support yet for Chomsky's universal grammar--his proposal that human beings are genetically endowed with an autonomous syntax module--has come in the discovery of large protein molecules in neural cells which almost precisely mimic the binary-branched tree structures already familiar to linguists worldwide. The discovery also opens up the possibility of, ... A TREE STRUCTURE FOR A BASIC TRANSITIVE SENTENCE, biochemically altering people's speech behavior--a specter which has some scientists questioning further research until ethical guidelines can be established for the new field. The first ... [ more ]

Writing a Fieldwork Dissertation. Kai Tak Suvarnabhumi, Independent Scholar. Fieldwork is an age-old tradition in Linguistics, and the fieldwork dissertation is, too, dating back at least to the age of Boas. While there is much to celebrate in this tradition—especially the very fact of its resurgence since the mid-1990s—there remain certain intractable problems which we, as linguists, have failed to address systematically. One of these problems, of course, is the lack of clear, systematic guidance for the novitiate in the realm of producing an acceptable doctoral screed. Though this brief article admittedly falls far short of the complete treatise that is needed, I promise to expand ... [ more ]

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