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 ]

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 ]

Good Enough for Folk Etymology— Part VI. A. Pocryphal & Verity du Bius, X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies. The SpecGram Archive Elves recently made another large collection of documents available to the XQK Directorate, leaving them on our doorstep in black plastic sacks in the middle of the night. In order to avoid any more unfortunate incidents involving a cucumber, a marmot, or the Director’s favorite coffee mug, we were given the task of cataloging these documents. Going through the collection, we have found again that, while apparently lacking provenance (which the Archive Elves still attribute to a bizarre set of circumstances obscurely ... [ more ]

Psammeticus Entertainment proudly presents.... SpecGram Suzie!. Hey there, Happy Party People! My name is Suzie. A long time ago I thought that maybe I wanted to be a linguist, but then I realized that linguistics actually isn’t very much fun! Linguists try to study human language scientifically in part because they can’t think of anything better to do with their time, and in part because they just can’t manage to get a date for Saturday night. Girls, you don’t really want to be a linguist, because sometimes it can be really, really hard, and it’s always really, really boring! If you study linguistics, you’d have to learn about weird ideas with strange names, like center ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part J—Feeding and Bleeding. Erin Taylor¹, Cal State Fullerton. Those unacquainted with the form and purpose of the Cartoon Theories of Linguistics can probably fake it if they are able to locate previous installments of this series. Let us turn our attention to Feeding and Bleeding Rules, as explained by Erin Taylor: Feeding and Bleeding Rules, Next time: Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism. References, Baron, W. (1983). “Cases of counter-feeding in Fas.” Language and Linguistics in Melanesia. Blumenfeld, L. (2003) “Counterfeeding, derived environment effects, and comparative markedness”. Theoretical Linguistics, Vol. 29, No. ... [ more ]

The Phonology Test. Ulfheðnar ber Sarkur. Ahh, the phonology test! It’s a rite of passage among linguists-to-be. There are those who grok the interplay of phonemes and the ordering of phonological processes, and there are those who decide to question whether such complex mechanisms could be instantiated in the human subconscious and whether their apparent existence is merely the echo of historical processes. That second type also tends to drop phonology by the second prelim and scurry off to some “philosophy of language” class—which is not even taught by the linguistics department, for crying out loud! Dr. Professor Noarn Chornsky—who has recently moved to take up a ... [ more ]

Contrary to Popular Belief.... Professor Pedantia Perfectus, Ph.D. & Señor Syntaxio Snarkwell, S-Quire, Vanquishers of Obfuscated Writing and Expression in Linguistics Sassociation. At V.O.W.E.L.S. we believe that it is our solemn duty^* to disabuse people of the incorrect notions they may have. Yet doing so in long, tightly argued rebuttals involves writing long, tightly argued rebuttals. In addition, there is a clearly demonstrated inverse correlation between the length of a statement and how convincing it is. A one-sentence claim that the Large Hadron Collider is going to create a wormhole that will involve the earth being covered in missing socks will always gather more believers than a long ... [ more ]

Toward a Universal Typology of Noun Phrases. One of the most noteworthy things about noun phrases in lots of languages is that they contain nouns. Usually at least one noun, sometimes more. Like, in the noun phrase below. (1), The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, the little boy blue and the man in the moon. I think that's a noun phrase, and possible more than one. I'm not really sure, cause I was kind of zoning when my prof explained noun phrases in Ling 101. But he's such a total dork, so I figure if he can do it I can. I mean like come on, this is a guy who wears polyester pants with Adidas. And at least I know what a noun is and theres lots of them in that sentence. Now, as far as verb phrases, which are a little bit off ... [ more ]

The Far Side of the Real. Posthumously Published from the Manuscript Files of Paul Cain. - II -, The Ragged Way Some People Live . By 3:30 I had finished reading the papers. Somebody had done a nasty job but good on Boileau. On just the first page of the first article published by Linguistic Enquiry the same sentence appeared three times broken down and glossed as “I shot your dog and hung it from her ceiling,” “I too wish weasels could fly above the clouds,” and something baroquely, obscurely obscene about the reader’s mother, uncle, and dead grandfather. The morph fanŋʷɔ was glossed 28 different ways by my count: ‘cat,’ ... [ more ]

Cryptolinguistic Puzzle ڄ. Mary Shapiro, Truman State University. Like other cryptic crosswords, the clues in this puzzle are not straightforward. Unlike most, however, this one focuses mainly on languages and linguistics. For instance, the clue for Zapotec might be “Oto-Manguean variety alters pez coat” (anagram of pez coat), or “Indigenous Mexican language to destroy overtime prior to European Commission” (ZAP + O.T. + E.C.), or “a nice top, a zany blouse conceals retro Oaxacan language” (niCE TOP, A Z~~any~~), or many other combinations of puns, anagrams, or typographic quirks. Punctuation in clues is often misleading. Each clue contains both a ... [ more ]

Linguimericks, Book ५७. ’Tis most strange to behold such a thing, That this journal its praises doth sing Of a friar with spunk Who showed to be bunk All the thought that its namesakes did fling —Pumptilian Perniquity, There once was a Franciscan friar Who cried out, “Your theory is dire! It has so many modes That the meaning implodes. Dispatch it at once to the pyre!” —Pete Bleackley, Occam to Entities “So, entities—don’t wanna phase you But this thing I’ve built here, Occam’s razor, Puts you all to the test And works out who’s best And the rest, well, I’m gonna erase you.” —Emily Deakinson, You theorists had better behave, Or ... [ more ]

READER’S FORUM. Attn: Editors, I have never been so insulted as when I read Dave Kathman’s (Vol. XVI, No. 1) thoroughly unfounded attack on my work and character. I shall not even deign to defend my theories—any unbiased reader of my book will certainly see that they are well-founded and insightful. However, I must protest K’s depiction of my work as full of savage “ad hominem attacks”—but that’s the sort of unfounded charge you can expect from a self-important half-wit like K. An ego the size of his, when paired with a brain the size of a walnut, will naturally belittle that which it could never hope to understand. K’s very existence supports the theory that ... [ more ]

Rotokan Revelations. Franny Irchow, A.R. McHair Institute for Armchair Linguistics, South Carolina. Rotokas is a Papuan language of New Guinea known for its very small and not particularly distinctive phoneme set. The wide variation in pronunciation has led to not-so-specific descriptions, such as declaring the voiced consonants (commonly written as V/v, R/r, and G/g in the Rotokas alphabet) to be “allophonic sets”: [β b, m], [ɾ n, l, d], and [ɡ ɣ ŋ]. Also of note, while Rotokas has a vowel-length distinction, it has (or is claimed to have—we shall see!) no other suprasegmental distinctions. Finally, early investigators (Firchow & Firchow, ... [ more ]

The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective. Are you in a world of linguistic hurt? The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective (SLAC) will offer you empirical, empathic, emphatic advice you can use!^* ... Remember, if you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, then you don’t need advice! So, if you need advice, trust us—and cut yourself some SLAC! ... Dear SLAC, I was recently dumbstruck by the fact that while “Je t’adore” sounds like “Shut the door,” “Fermez la porte” doesn’t sound at all like “I love you.” I’ve asked several linguists why this is, and they’ve all refused to answer. Please ... [ more ]

A Primer in, SF Xenolinguistics. - eep opp ork ah-ah -, Justin B. Rye. — - ash nazg durbatulûk -, Table of Contents. Fantasy Exotic Tongues—An Introduction, Let’s Speak Alien—In Ten Easy Lessons, The Unspeakable—And The Unthinkable, Universal Translators—A Buyer’s Guide, CETI for Beginners—Little Green Manuals — - borag thungg -, FANTASY EXOTIC TONGUES—An Introduction. If you’ve reached the online version of this article chasing the search-string “ +fantasy +exotic +tongues ” then I’m afraid you’ve probably come to ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Black Leather Issue, Volume CL, Number 2; April 2005, Special Interactive 3D content, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CL, No 2, MANAGING EDITOR, Trey Jones, EDITOR EMERITUS, Tim Pulju, SENIOR EDITOR, Keith Slater, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Bryan Allen, Mark de Vries, Martin Hilpert, Edward Johnson, Steven Lulich, Sheila McCann, Jamin Pelkey, Mikael Thompson, Bill Spruiell, Rob van der Sandt, Joey Whitford, There is no spoon. ... [ 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 ]

I Will Not Say: Do Not Weep; For Not All Tears Are An Evil. A Letter From the Surviving Editors. As regular readers will be aware, the fortunes of Speculative Grammarian have waxed and waned over the centuries. Those of us who have worked on the journal in recent years count ourselves lucky to have done so in a golden age of linguistic satire. However, it is not possible to puncture the pretensions of linguistics as assiduously as we have done without making some enemies. Recently, we have attracted the hostility of a shadowy cabal involving Noam Chomsky, OpenAI, and the International Brotherhood of Agistors, Lamplighters, Journal Interns, Ushkuyniks, & Zoögraphers. To evade their nefarious attentions, we now find ... [ more ]

X Marks the Spot, Filling the Empty Quadrant. Yùron Yurōn, Yucatán Yuniversity. In his book, Pasteur’s Quadrant, Donald Stokes lays out a two-dimensional continuum for scientific research. The two axes can be characterized as relevance for immediate application and relevance for the advancement of knowledge. Basic research, like that done by Niels Bohr, focuses on the advancement of knowledge. Applied research, such as Thomas Edison’s work, focuses on relevance for immediate applications. Louis Pasteur is lauded by Stokes for considering both purposes at once. It makes for a lovely diagram. ... However, there is that unsightly empty quadrant, marked here with an X. ... [ more ]

Most Popular Pages—Today