SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CXCV, Number 3; February 2026, C HIEF C AT H ERDER &, A RBITER OF THE L AST W ORD, Trey Jones, O RDER OF THE, S PECULATIVE P SAMMETICOI, Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson, Tim Pulju, Bill Spruiell, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CXCV, No 3, H EAD OF L EARNING, L INGUISTICS T HROUGH, S ATIRE AND P UNS, Jonathan Downie, S YNTACTICO- P OET &, U NDER- E DITOR OF, U NDER- E DITING, Deak Kirkham, S ENIOR P UZZLING, T EST P ILOT, Vincent Fish, K EEPER OF THE, E DITORIAL T EA C ADDY, Pete Bleackley, A SSOCIATE D EPUTY, A SSISTANT S UB- M ANAGER, OF S ATIRICAL S UCCESS, Luca Dinu, O RTHOGRAPHER- A T- L ARGE, Daniel Swanson, D ILETTANTE E MERITUS, Tel ... [ 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 ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part 14—Gricean Implicature. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Welcome to the Cartoon Theories of Linguistics! If you are new to the series, where have you been? We’ve been doing this for almost two years! Go back to the beginning (SpecGram CLII.1) if you need to, to understand our mission: [W]e should be able to reduce the essence of important linguistic concepts to something we can explain to that bright, interested 10-year-old. In fact, I contend that we can boil the essence right down to something we can explain in a cartoon. Now, to the heart of this installment—an illustration of the different types of ... [ 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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

Editor’s Contractually-Obligated Introduction. Mikael Thompson. It is meet and proper to say a few words of explanation¹ about how this collection came to be. At the council at which we agreed with all alacrity to contribute to the Festschrift for Trey Jones, it quickly became apparent that despite Trey’s well-earned reputation as the towering figure in modern linguistics, the very fact that this journal would be the venue for his Festschrift means he must perforce suffer a flood of rancorous, envy-ridden comments from lesser minds. It was agreed that we should consider a Festschrift for at least one other linguist who has made as great and profound a contribution to the field of ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor, double-dot wide-o To the most respected Editors, In the fall I’ll be a first-year grad student in linguistics at R––– University. A couple of the current fourth-years told me that the International Phonetic Association was adding several new symbols for sounds that have previously been considered to have questionable status as phonemes. They said that the most contentious new addition was double-dot wide-O, a nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill. I’ve leafed through several back issues of SpecGram, Language, and a few other journals. I’ve searched the Linguist List archives, and scoured the web. I can’t find anything about it ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part 13—Langue vs. Parole. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Please familiarize yourself with earlier installments of Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, available in previous issues of this journal. Now, to the meat of the matter—an illustration of the most crucial distinction between Langue and Parole: Langue vs Parole Coming up: Gricean Implicature. References, Culler, Jonathan. 1976. Saussure. de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Edited by C. Bally and A. Sechehaye, with the collaboration of A. Riedlinger. Godel, R. 1957. Les sources manuscrites du Cours de ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part 3—Morphological Typology. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. No need for an introduction, it was covered in previous installments (on non-configurational languages and ergativity). Instead, let us proceed to the next chapter of our Cartoon Theories of Linguistics. I have provided the following cartoonish exegesis of morphological typology for your edification: ... Up next: Statistical Machine Translation. References, Baker, Mark. (1988). Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Baker, Mark. (1996). The polysynthesis parameter. Comrie, Bernard. (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology (2nd ... [ 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 ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part 九—Lexicostatistics vs. Glottochronology. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. If you are new to Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, please review back issues of this journal. Now let us consider the fundamental difference between Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology: Lexicostatistics Glottochronology Up next: Feeding and Bleeding with guest cartoonist Erin Taylor. References, Arndt, Walter W. (1959). “The performance of glottochronology in Germanic”. Language, 35, 180-192. Bergsland, Knut; & Vogt, Hans. (1962). “On the validity of glottochronology”. Current Anthropology, 3, 115-153. Chretien, Douglas ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part ж—The Trouble with NLP. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Please review previously discussed materials as needed. Now that that is taken care of, let us consider why Natural Language Processing (or, its alter-ego, Computational Linguistics) has not been the resounding success regularly predicted by the NLP faithful: We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were hungry/over-ripe. Time/Fruit flies like a(n) arrow/banana. pretty little girl’s school crying computational linguist Up next: Lexicostatistics vs Glottochronology. References, Baeza-Yates, Ricardo and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto (1999). Modern Information ... [ more ]

L’Ishing du Gwujlang. by Dorothea Dorfman and Theodora Mundorf, with additional assistance from Lini Nealey and Lucia Chaloux. Introduction Even minimally informed linguists and serious amateurs will be aware of verlan (from Fr. l’envers), the French reverse-syllable argot. Fewer will, however, know of a similar secretive cant based on English, and reportedly used by members of a splinter group of the Original English Movement. In keeping with the re-spelled pattern of verlan, this jargon is known as l’ishing. Unlike verlan, however, l’ishing users prefer words that map onto one another when some portion of the sounds at the end of a given word are moved to the ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXV, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Senior Editor; Jonathan Downie, Contributing Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Mark Mandel; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Deak Kirkham, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Tel Monks, Mary Shapiro, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; That It Is What It Is Is Simply How It Is; July 2019 ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part I—Non-Configurational Languages. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. A. Mathematician Friend¹ once told me that, in mathematics, it is sometimes said that if you cannot explain the basic outline of a mathematical idea to a bright and interested 10-year-old, then you don’t really understand it yourself. That got me thinking, and I’ve come to a couple of conclusions: According to my 10-year-old niece, I don’t understand any mathematical ideas. Something similar could be said for linguistic ideas.² It is generally accepted that math is hard (Davis & Hersh, Friend, Lakoff & ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part XI—Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Those in need of an introduction to Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, please review previous installments in the series. Now let us consider the finer distinctions between Prescriptivism and Descriptivism: Prescriptivism Descriptivism Coming up: Syllables. References, Bessant C. A. M. McEnery (1992). Computational Linguistics: A Handbook & Toolbox for Natural Language Processing. Cameron, D. (2004). Verbal Hygiene. Gleason, H. A. (1961). An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics. Johnstone, B. and D. Baumgardt. (2004). ‘Pittsburghese’ ... [ more ]

A Preliminary Field Guide to Linguists, Part Two. Athanasious Schadenpoodle, University of Nueva Escranton. Introduction The previous installment, dealing with Neoplatonicus and Functionalisticus, comprised a brief discussion of the less problematic genera in the family--less problematic in the sense that their grouping is not contested among those working in this area. This section will deal with two groups whose taxonomic status is a matter of quite some debate; to a large extent, the groupings presented should be taken as tentative, and done largely for the sake of organized presentation (cf. Gnibbes 1998 and Czechzindemeyl 1999 for representative positions on grouping of these ... [ more ]

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