SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

Linguimericks, Book १०४. Beaver PV Irony Phrasal verbs with animal stems Abound in English lexis— Like ‘beaver away at a conference’. And the irony is I noticed this With my beaver away at a conference —B Verr, I can’t face it! Word combos with face! Well, let’s chase ’em: There’s face off and the A-Team’s ‘the Faceman’ About face and volte face Examples amass If we simply sit down and we face ’em —Face Man, Sonnet 18(v2) Shall I compare thee to an allomorph? Thou art more complex and in form more rich Than any morpheme that one might attach To free or to bound roots, which then puts forth Its range of forms; ... [ 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 Volume CLXXVIII, Number π ... Speculative Grammarian, in association with, Psammeticus Press, is proud to present a special, supplemental duograph, Pseudo-Psiblings, by Trey Jones, &, On Pseudo-Psiblings, by Fillastre Pèl-Roig, et al. Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief, Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Pseudo-Psiblings; Mid-April 2016 ... [ more ]

Uncovering the Hidden Secrets of Alphapointillism. Jonathan van der Meer and Lagâri Hasan Çelebi, Center for Computational Bioinformatics and Linguistics, NYC, NY. ... A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jot and La Tour Affixal, two of Georges Seubscript’s most famous and most important works. In 1889, only a few short years before his untimely death in an unfortunate palato-uvular co-articulation accident, famed and acclaimed alphapointillist Georges Seubscript created a truly enigmatic work, the purpose and subject of which has mystified and bewildered historical linguists and art historians alike for many decades. Unlike his more famous alphapointillist works, “A Sunday ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part E—Phonetics vs. Phonology. Hilário Parenchyma, C.Phil. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. We will skip the introduction, as we have been there, done that. Once more into the breach! For this installment in our series on Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, we will turn our attention to Phonetics and Phonology and the difference between the two: Phonetics:, ... Phonology:, ... Thanks to Professor Phlogiston, of the Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn, for the opportunity of a lifetime, as a student, to, on this occasion, share with so many of my fellow linguisticians my views, as illustrated above, concerning matters, which are of such immeasurable import ... [ more ]

To be or too many be-s. Deedles D’Dee, SpecGram Poet-in-Residence. There’s many types of English verbs as anyone can see: Lexical and light verbs and verbs that don’t agree; And serial and phrasal; but the Verb (with capital ‘V’) That everyone loves most of all’s the verbiest verb: to be. Its very many meanings, like trees within a wood, Overlap like modals (you know, will and can and could). So, in this little ditty, this wisp of poetry, Let’s spend some time with be syntactico-semantically. So first up, be is lexical (means something like ‘exist’), Or, if you wanna push it, it might signify ... [ more ]

PAID ADVERTISEMENT — http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress Bestsellers of 2015 At Panini Press, we continue to be Committed to the life and career of the Working Linguist—but All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Vowel. For your Amusement and Edification, we collect here the Bestselling Fiction and Non-Fiction Books of 2015, from Panini Press. All are now available at Fine Book Retailers world-wide.❦पा Between the Word and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Co-Texts Vowel Purity, by Jargonathan Franzen Future Tenses: Everything Has Connotations, Everyone Uses Vernacular, and What We Can Do About It, by Marc Gerundman Footnotes and Furies, by Lauren Greatvowelshiff ... [ 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 CLXXXII, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Deak Kirkham, Tel Monks, Cathal Peelo, Mary Shapiro, Bill Spruiell, Steve Straight, Isabelle Tellier, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; “Inconceivable” Merely Indicates, a Failure of Imagination; September 2018 ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLX, Number 3; December 2010, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLX, No 3, CONSULTING EDITORS, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Bethany Carlson, Carin Marais, Tel Monks, Freya Shipley, Tom, Stinnett, Nick Williams, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, V(t) = √(2mg/ρAC(d)), ... [ more ]

On the Go ~ Went Alternation. A Contribution (?) to the Generative Phonology of English^*. Bernard Comrie, University of Cambridge. Most theories of phonology (morphophonology, morphology) allow for suppletion, whereby the allomorphs of a morpheme are completely unrelated phonetically. In discussing English phonology, one example of suppletion that is frequently cited is go [gōw] ~ went [went]. Within generative phonology (taken here essentially in the sense of Chomsky & Halle (1968)), one attempts to set up a single underlying representation for all allomorphs of a morpheme. The fact (if it is a fact) that suppletion exists, i.e. that certain allomorphs of a single morpheme ... [ more ]

On the Proto-Indo-European Origin of ‘Twerk’. Mark Butcher & Mark Candlestick-Maker, Department of PIE Studies, Pecan University. A common question asked of linguists these days, to our collective dismay, is “What is the etymology of ‘twerk’?”¹ Twerking is a dance craze with respectable origins in the New Orleans bounce music scene,² but it has enraged millions in recent years for reasons we would rather avoid writing about. Several authors have speculated that the term is a clipping of ‘footwork’ or a portmanteau of ‘twist’ and ‘jerk’³ (foolish speculation, we know). We will make the case that the word is of ... [ more ]

— http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress Welcome to the online home of Panini Press, an academic publishing house formerly dedicated to the proposition that Linguistics is the noblest of the academic fields, but now with a focus on Subjects of more relevance to the Working Linguist’s everyday life and career. ❦पा Important announcements from Panini Press: ❧ Word Problems for Linguists (November 2025): Linguists, we here at Panini Press know you thought that you’d never again have to do anything more mathematically complicated than figure out the tip on your dinner bill. However, the real world often has other plans, so, for your own good, Dr. Barbara Millicent Roberts’s new book, Word ... [ 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 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 Pack, I’ve been having a hard time explaining to my family and non-linguistics-grad friends (both of them) just what it is I do all day. (Well, in practice what I do all day is lie in bed and browse Twitter, but I digress...) Which brings me to my main question: what is linguistics really? Is ... [ more ]

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