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 ]

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 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 ]

Vinegar Valentines. As Valentine’s Day rolls around once again, we at SpecGram recognize that not everyone has a special someone to spend the day with. Some people have no one; pity unto them. But the real losers on Valentine’s Day are those who have someone, just not someone who is particularly special. Whether it’s a creeper, a stalker, a jilted ex, or just a poor misguided soul who is a little too thick to take a hint, these Vinegar Valentines—a genre which rose to popularity in the late 19th century—will help you let them down, albeit none too gently. Click an image for higher resolution. ... [ 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 ]

Onomastic Destiny ♂. Dirk Delarme & Emma Gassert. Despite the breathless coverage of nominative determinism in the popular press (and other outlets that should know better), there still seems to be something about people’s names that can subtly influence their choice of career. The ten men listed below are all linguists of one stripe or another. Can you determine their areas of specialization, based on the subtly mystical impact their names have had on their professional lives? Chet Spino Craig Stamp Luis Gilmartin Noah Raap Sid Crusoe Simon Costa Steve Cornwall Stevie Ingram Tim Cessna Travis Babione Submit your answers to the editors of SpecGram by March 15, 2021, and you could win a prize. Solutions and ... [ 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 ]

HanjieLinguru III. ... Key phrase: подвод воздуха для охлаждения реактивного конуса, Б = # of в (in the key phrase), Д = # of o, Ж = # of ж, И = # of д, Л = # of я, Ц = # of к, Ъ = # of а, Я = # of г, з, п, р, с, and т, Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Tokyo. After having been AWOL for several months (we finally located them on a beach in Biarritz), the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™ are back with their noses shackled to the grindstone for another installment of HanjieLinguru. HanjieLinguru is a simple extension of the traditional Hanjie form, but with just enough linguistics ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXIV, Number 2 ... 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: Bethany Carlson, Craig Kopris, Andrew Lamont, Ronald Macaulay, Tel Monks, Davis Prickett, Laura Ryals, Nicholas Welch; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; It’s Not a Gimmick Because We Say It’s Not a Gimmick; October 2015 ... [ more ]

In this study we explore how the linguist interacts with a wide range of structural variability by simulating not only the behavior of the trees themselves but also the behavior of the linguist. ... [ more ]

Rasmus Rask Diamond Puzzle XI. by Lila Rosa Grau. This is the eleventh Rasmus Rask puzzle, devoted to the original Mr. Charming Scandinavian Linguist. The puzzle is similar to a crossword puzzle, in that there is a grid for filling in words and phrases, and clues for the ACROSS and DOWN directions. However, all the squares in a Rasmus Rask puzzle are filled with letters, and the answers to the clues may (but are not required to) overlap. Clues for a particular row or column are given together, in the order they appear in the grid. No indication of the amount of overlap between clues is given. Letters spelling out RASMUS RASK in a diamond shape are given to provide a framework for filling in the answers. ... [ more ]

Personal Ads for Linguists—including linguists of every kind seeking romance, academic partnerships, and more—all with that special SpecGram twist. N.B.: Information in personal ads is provided by the submitters. The editors and publishers of Speculative Grammarian are not responsible for their content, including, but not limited to, typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, bad judgment, factual errors, bald-faced lies, or lapses in national security ... [ more ]

Rasmus Rask Mini Puzzle IX. by Lila Rosa Grau. This is the ninth Rasmus Rask puzzle, devoted to the original Mr. Charming Scandinavian Linguist. The puzzle is similar to a crossword puzzle, in that there is a grid for filling in words and phrases, and clues for the ACROSS and DOWN directions. However, all the squares in a Rasmus Rask puzzle are filled with letters, and the answers to the clues may (but are not required to) overlap. Clues for a particular row or column are given together, in the order they appear in the grid. No indication of the amount of overlap between clues is given. Letters spelling out RASMUS RASK along the diagonal are given to provide a framework for filling in the answers. Grey ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXI, Number 3; April 2011, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXI, No 3, CONSULTING EDITORS, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Jeff, Burke, Bethany Carlson, Nynke, de Haas, Alex, Savoy, Freya Shipley, Tom, Stinnett, Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, t_½ =, ln(2), ... [ 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 CXLVIII, Number 4. March 1998. Speculative Grammarian, Vol CXLVIII, No 4 EDITOR, Tim Pulju ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Aya Katz, John Newell, Keith Slater, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Dave Fleck, Victor T. Jones III, Donald Francis Reindl, Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira, I don't reckon you will find anything on Judge Irwin, ... [ more ]

Virtual NLP Dice. The SpecGram Überlinguistaffen. ... [Re-roll.] [Re-roll like you mean it !!] As many successful practitioners of Natural Language Processing know, the surest path to success is to come up with some complicated-looking equation and then rest on your mathematical laurels for the rest of your career—because “Math is hard, and hard things are for smart people, and smart people are just better. QED.” Or so we learned from the original ad for NLP Dice: “Local Linguist Mom Discovers One Weird Trick for Deriving NLP Equations!—Computational Linguists Hate Her!” (SpecGram ... [ more ]

The Influence of Seasonings in Middle and Modern English. Rosemary and Basil Dillon. English cuisine is notorious for being heavy in the stomach and light on flavor. However, it would be incorrect to presume that this has always been the case.¹ A careful examination of literature in the Middle and Early Modern English periods provides compelling evidence that the English were once spice-crazy. Take, for example, one of the earliest known songs in English. Sumer is icumen in, (Cumin is in/from Sumer) We must admire the historical and philological chops of England in the Middle Ages. Not only does cumin originate in the historical area of ancient Sumer, it also happens to be one of the few words in English ... [ more ]

University News. Textbooks Hold the Key to Second Language Learning Development. by Ruthlessly Roving Reporter Miss Deakina Andrea Kirkhamia Results published yesterday from the Consortium of Higher Education Approaches to Teaching (CHEAT) suggest that textbooks hold the key to second language learning development. A series of experiments suggest that vocabulary, grammar and even abstract features of pronunciation such as liaison, ellipsis, etc. that emerge in connected speech, as well as the phonological rules underlying dialect forms, can in fact be learnt simply from being in the same room as a well-produced textbook, assuming it has lots of colourful pictures of happy language ... [ more ]

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