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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 ]

An Embarrassment of Entities. A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief. This issue of Speculative Grammarian is unlike any that has every come before and—if I have anything to do with it—unlike any that will come after. Our theme for this issue—dictated by our mighty yet beneficent sponsor—is Occam’s Razor. This is a tad ironic, one might suppose, as the grammarian philosophy of the Modistae (i.e. the so-called speculative grammarians of the 13th and 14th centuries) is in direct opposition to the nominalism of William of Ockham. However: First, it’s the 21st century—we should let bygones be bygones. (ii) ... [ more ]

Linguist of Fortune. The Journal of the Linguistic Society of South-Central New Caledonia. Volume I, Number 1. November 1990. Linguist of Fortune: The Journal of the Linguistic Society of South-Central New Caledonia, ... [ more ]

Arabic Numeral to Numeri++ Converter. by Daniel Swanson & Trey Jones. Cognomen 2018 (SpecGram, CLXXX.3) in footnote ‡‡† lays out “a superior, novel solution” to extending Numeri++, his science-nerd–friendly upgrade to Roman numerals, to accommodate values beyond 5,000. Below we provide a handy converter^† for the mathematically and/or typographically challenged among you who would like to use this system — ^† It appears that our buddy Prae-Prae put a little too much faith in the Unicode Consortium. Obviously any entity with “Consortium” right there in the name is not to be trusted fully. The biggest problem is that ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLVIII, Number 3; March 2010, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLVIII, No 3, CONSULTING EDITORS, Ken Miner, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Jonathan Downie, Mary Shapiro, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen, CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kean Kaufmann, Joey Whitford, x =, -b ± √ ... b² - 4ac, ... 2a, ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVIII, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Pete Bleackley, Don Boozer, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Mark Brierley, Bethany Carlson, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, Jonathan Downie, Brianne Hughes, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Cathal Peelo, David J. Peterson, Callum Robson, Maraci Rubin, Zac Smith; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Dat Assibilation; November 2013 ... [ more ]

Etymology is for the Brids. A Letter from the Executive Editor. Dear Readers, Let’s face it, the history of words is about as interesting as a burlap sack filled with cow manure, and you get pretty much the same response if you dump either item onto a friend without warning. It’s fortunate that most departments stopped teaching historical linguistics after syntacticians declared it unfashionable in 1973. whankydoodle But even without historical linguistics, our field is rife with subdisciplines that are guaranteed to stun the average interlocutor. Most non-linguists achieve rigor mortis of the face after exposure to a mere five-word discourse on discourse, and psycholinguistics has been known to ... [ 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 ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXII, Number 1; June 2011, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXII, No 1, CONSULTING EDITORS, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Jeff, Burke, Christine, Collins, Bethany Carlson, Kevin, McGowan, Freya Shipley, Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, Every time you conjugate... God kills a kitten, ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXX, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Pete Bleackley, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Callum Robson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Bethany Carlson, Sophie Elsässer, Rachel Jamison, Katerina Kandylaki, Stephanie Leser, Mark Mandel, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Jona Sassenhagen, Lea Schäfer, Zac Smith; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Ernomahterpoeria; May 2014 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVII, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Pete Bleackley, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Jonathan Downie, T.B. Geller, Adam Graham, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Callum Robson; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; I Took an Ejective to the Knee; June 2013 ... [ 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 ]

Psammeticus Press www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, Chiasmus of the Month Awards ... This somewhat irregular award is a sign of our recognition of and deep appreciation for the authors’ contribution to the upholding of decent writing standards in academic literature and to the dissemination of the finest of speech figures. Winners are selected for ~~each~~ ~~most~~ many issues by our Chiastic Editor and Editorial Chiasturge. The honorees to date are listed below. Chiasmus of the Month; November 2025, Todd Copeland, 2024, “A Figure of Speech and a Speechless Figure: Determinations of Identity in George Sand’s Indiana and Edith Wharton’s The House of ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXIX, Number 4 Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Senior Editor; Jonathan Downie, Senior Editor, Pete Bleackley, Contributing Editor, Deak Kirkham, Contributing Editor; Associate Editors: Vincent Fish, Mark Mandel; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Luca Dinu, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Egan Chernoff, Tom Patterson, Daniel Swanson; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Dotting Dotty İ’s and Crossing Cross T’s; March 2021 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXV, Number 1 Sēsquiplicātus स्टफ Ἡμι-Demi-Семи- Μέγα Issue ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Adam Baker, Bethany Carlson, Peter Carrillo, Tel Monks, Davis Prickett, Laura Ryals, Brock Schardin, Mary Shapiro, Isabelle Tellier, Anna Weingarten; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; I love a good creole. It’s got that ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXVIII, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Bill Spruiell, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Adam Baker, Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Robin Day, Kean Kaufmann, Andrew Lamont, Carin Marais, Tel Monks, Mary Shapiro, Adham Smart, Kien-Wei Tseng, Don Unger; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Dummy See, Dummy Do; January 2017 ... [ more ]

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