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Phlegmatic Scholarship: Ahem! A Cross-Cultural Study of the Signifying Throat-Clear . by Justa Little-Hörss, PhD, Dilettante University Press, Reviewed by Jonathan Caws-Elwitt. [Note: This seminal work of Phlegmatic Scholarship first appeared in Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Spring 2006), and is reprinted here by permission —Eds.] There’s clearing one’s throat, and there’s clearing one’s throat. In midwinter cold season, we all learn to tune out the repetitive rasps of our families, friends, and colleagues as they struggle to free themselves from the unwelcome matter that accumulates within. Similarly, the throat-clearing manifestations of ... [ more ]

Reconstructing the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Joseph Paul Stemberger. In the recent years, much attention has been given to the vocabulary of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). What words the PIE-ans did and did not have can tell us much. Benveniste (1973) discusses PIE kinship systems, economy and ways of life. In these studies, however, there is one very important area of the lexicon that has been neglected. No one has yet analyzed the terms for body parts to determine what the PIE-ans actually looked like. Most have probably assumed that they looked much like their descendants do today, but there is no empirical evidence supporting this assumption, and we really must attempt to verify or discredit it. At first ... [ more ]

The Prescriptivist Handbook, 213^th Edition, from The Editors of Psammeticus Press, Published 2024. 150 pages Word connoisseurs, language mavens, and members of similar non-professions everywhere can rejoice, as Psammeticus Press has just released the 213^th edition of The Prescriptivist Handbook, the acclaimed¹ language-adjacent publication used by millions worldwide. Since its first edition in 1811, The Prescriptivist Handbook has helped countless people prevent the degradation of the English language into senseless illogicality by introducing linguistic innovations to enable them to speak efficiently, logically, and (most importantly) correctly. Not only that, its various ... [ 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 ]

Linguistics: The Ultimate Field of Study?. Unintentionally, I have come upon evidence suggesting that linguistics is, perhaps, the ultimate field of study. By this I mean that there is a universal trend for highly motivated, hard working people, who tire easily of lesser subjects, to progress along a hierarchy of disciplines, culminating with linguistics. The evidence consists of a number of case studies, presented below. The names have been changed to protect the identity of these academics, many of who may want to hide their past intellectual follies. J. Audzis: undergrad degree in chemical engineering, later received degree in Spanish literature; MA in linguistics; is currently pursuing a PhD in linguistics. O. Btillar: undergrad ... [ more ]

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something *else* that tries to look like iconicity, and then look at some innovative and/or abominable on-going changes in English. ... [ listen ]

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something that tries to look like iconicity, and then share their favorite linguistical jokes. ... [ listen ]

The Compleat Linguist. John-Boy Walton. Man’s sentence’s in vain, for it’s subject is pain, And sorrow, and short as a quick click; ’ Tis a hodge-podge of syntax, semantics, and sounds, And sounds, semantics, and logique. But we’ll take no care when the funding proves fair; Nor will we vex now our wee brains; We’ll banish all sorrow, and sing till to-morrow, And theorize and theorize again. ... [ more ]

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds briefly discuss some innovative bits of English Grammar—no, totally!—and then try out some new parlor games featuring archaic English words. ... [ listen ]

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 ]

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a one hundred word language, and then move on to the royal and other orders for adjectives. ... [ listen ]

The Man Who Left His Deictic Center in San Francisco. by Edward Tapir and Benjamin Wharf, Department of Ungulate and Shipping Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst. One of our esteemed colleagues has attended numerous semantics conferences around the world, from the sad streets of Paris to gloomy Rome and even lonely Manhattan. A recent conference at the University of California, San Francisco on spatial representation, however, has left a particularly significant impact on his idiolect. Ever since returning, he has been uttering sentences like these below: I am holding that cup three thousand miles away from San Francisco in my hand. (referring to a cup presently in his hand) Could you please hand me that ... [ 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 ]

Chickenese—A Grammatical Sketch. Damon Lord. Many linguists and animal psychologists have sought to discover if mankind is the sole species to have developed language. Recent experiments with chickens at Foxchester University, in Foxchester, England, have discovered that mankind is no longer alone. The language discovered has been dubbed Chickenese by linguists. All attempts to quantify grammar have failed; linguists believe Chickenese has little (if any) grammar. The current theory is that, due to the small size of the brain of the domesticated chicken and the limited vocabulary of the chicken species, thought processes are not developed enough to develop grammar, although repetition has been observed. ... [ more ]

The Quotta and the Quottiod. Punctuation Designed for Linguists, by Linguists. Vére Çélen, l’École de SpecGram, Cheboksary, Chuvashia. It is not news to linguists that particular forms of punctuation can be problematic. One frequent source of considerable friction in certain circles is the unending debate over whether and when (and, increasingly, why) commas and periods go inside or outside quotation marks—especially when they are not actually part of the material to be quoted. Typically careful linguists usually prefer not to include punctuation in a quoted citation form or gloss, while many punctilious punctuationally prescriptivist publishers demand they be ... [ more ]

Ten New Commandments for Linguists. Transcribed from the original Stone Tablets by Trey Jones, With much help from the Commandment Clarification Committee, including Joel Boyd, Aya Katz, Jouni Maho, Ken Miner, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, and Joey Whitford. As a Linguist, thou art an ambassador for the scientific study of Language and languages in the land of the monolingual naive speaker. Even though the monolingual naive speaker roll their eyes at thee and chastise thee as a word-obsessed fool and exalt their own native speaker competence, thou shalt proselytize the study of “Language with a big-L” whenever and wherever thou mayest do so, spreading the true word of descriptivism and railing ... [ more ]

Linguistic Contributions To The Formal Theory Of Big-Game Hunting¹. R. Mathiesen, Brown University. The Mathematical Theory of Big-Game Hunting must surely be ranked among the major scientific achievements of the twentieth century. That this is so is largely the work of one man, H. Pétard, in whose fundamental paper (1938) certain recent advances in mathematics and physics were employed with great skill to create a theory of unmatched—not to say unmatchable!—power and elegance. One must not, of course, dismiss Pétard’s predecessors totally out of hand: the field had a long and distinguished history as a technology, was raised to the rank of a science by the ... [ more ]

A Love/Hate Relationship: Pesky Antonyms. Jessie Sams, Stephen F. Austin State University. When students get to college, the majority of them have never thought about antonyms as being anything more than “opposites.” So big is the opposite of small, just like buyer is the opposite of seller. Then, all of a sudden, students are forced into a linguistics course with a professor who tells them that they have to learn to differentiate among different types of antonyms. Student’s minds are nearly exploding with information as they have to learn definitions of terms like ‘converse’ and ‘gradable’ and ‘complementary’ in the world of ... [ more ]

Handy Definitions for Newcomers to the Field of Linguistics. Translated from the Original Sanskrit, by Ken Miner and David J. Peterson. back-formation: lumbar exercises circumfix: unhealthy fascination with circuses; a cross inside a circle copula: when two people love each other very much... dative: adjective describing two people in a relationship diphthong: not quite skinny dipping, but a thong doesn’t cover that much... dissimilation: not being truthful elative case: a joyful attache high vowel: a vowel used in Bavaria; a vowel with an ancestry isogloss: shiny cake frosting linguist: someone who speaks a lot of languages low vowel: any ... [ more ]

Reviewerish Field Notes. by Cy Tayshon and M. Paktphaq-Torr. One of the most important skills linguists-to-be must develop is the ability to interpret the true meaning behind apparently transparent locutions used by more senior practitioners of the art and science of linguistics. Early, helpful work in this area includes Metalleus’s “Important Idioms in Contemporary Science” (Lingua Pranca 1978), and An Interpreter’s Dictionary of Linguistic Argumentation (Onesimus, 2008). As important as these resources are, they focus largely on the critical interpretation of linguistics texts. As proto-linguists develop to the point where they begin to prepare their own texts, it is ... [ more ]

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