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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 ]
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 ]
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 ]
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 ]
ADVERTISEMENT This issue of Speculative Grammarian is brought to you by... Occam’s Safety Razor™ by Gillette. ... Occam’s Safety Razor™ comes in BA, MA, and PhD Candidate models. Occam’s Safety Razor™— Simply Safe. Good News, Faculty!, A tenure-track model is now in development. Pre-order yours today! Accept no substitutes! ... [ 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 ]
Reviews in Linguistic Historiography: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. by, Хөөмийн Гийлгүүлэгч Associate Professor, Department of the History of Science. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been famous ever since its publication in 1818 as a vividly related medical-scientific case study, so much so that its significance in the history of medicine has far overshadowed its importance in linguistics. Indeed, its crucial role in medical history has led to its extremely wide currency in popular portrayals of medical research,1 while its neglect by linguistic historiographers is only matched by its ... [ more ]
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Madalena Cruz-Ferreira for Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics. They also discuss the fact that German speakers can’t say “squirrel” and whether “modulo” is the nerdiest preposition. Finally, they give more Prescriptivist Confessions. ... [ listen ]
Thirteen Untranslatable Words. by Michael Covarrubias. I’m a language lover. I have been since I was a kid. Just about eleven months after being born, I started saying words and I’ve been using them ever since. I probably use words every day and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. After a while, we language lovers have a hard time learning more about our native language. That’s why we branch out to memorize other languages. It can be hard though, because a lot of foreign languages have words in them that we just can’t translate into English. Maybe it’s because we don’t have the concept in English, and that makes it impossible to make up a label for the concept. Or, more interestingly, ... [ more ]
Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXI, Number 3 ... 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; Editorial Associates: Cem Bozsahin, Bethany Carlson, Steve Dodson, Mark Mandel, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Tuuli Mustasydän, Callum Robson, Yuval Wigderson; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Ἡ γλῶσσα πολλῶν ἐστιν αἰτια κακῶν; November 2014 ... [ 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 ]
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, 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 ]
On Powerful Linguistic Theories. SpecGram Wire Services. Science Journalist: What’s the most powerful linguistic theory? Professor: Mine. Assistant Professor: Whatever the funders ask for. Grad Student: My professor’s. Recent Graduate: Anything but my professor ... [ more ]
PAID ADVERTISEMENT Plagiarism Uncovered in SpecGram Pages. The Linguistic Inquirer. Pursuant to the terms of the pre-litigious resolution of Grammar Entelechy v. Speculative Grammarian1 the editors of SpecGram have recently disclosed the truth about the academically distasteful practices by which the allegedly “esteemed”2 journal foists its linguistic and paralinguistic agenda on the profession. Of particular concern is Speculative Grammarian3’s long-running, recurring, and well-documented theme that languages, dialects, and grammars can be or become degenerate.4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, ... [ more ] 
Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXI, Number 1 Special Retrospective Issue ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Pete Bleackley, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Callum Robson; Editorial Associates: Cem Bozsahin, Bethany Carlson, Peter Carrillo, Michael Covarrubias, Steve Dodson, Mark Mandel, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Tuuli Mustasydän, Will Styler, Yuval Wigderson; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; ¡This! ¡Is! ¡SpecGram!; September 2014 ... [ more ]
“Interpretez seront les extipices”, On the Correct Interpretation of Nostradamus, Part the Third. by Roger Prentiss Claremont, Independent Sovereign Scholar. In Parts the First and Second of this series, we discussed the basis of our new interpretation of the prophetic verses of Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566), usually known as Nostradamus. His verses have eluded definitive interpretation for several centuries, and this series shows that that is because earlier interpretations made the basic error of assuming his verses were in French. In fact, they are better interpreted as English encoded in French. This part shall complete the task of interpretation of selected verses, after which we shall turn ... [ more ]
SpecGram, Quarterly. A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief. [Note: Due to a scheduling error 0 and tight deadline, we were unable to cull a small percentage of the Editor-in-Chief’s extensive and extraneous footnotes. Our usual modus operandi is to allow him to annotate and divagate to his tiny black heart’s approximation of contentment, and then mercilessly cut the dead weight with a red pencil-cum-machete. In this case, we were only able to remove and repair the subsequent rhetorical and narrative damage for approximately 86.7% (by weight) of the Editor-in-Chief’s most egregious footnotery. We apologize for the unavoidable ... [ more ]
Psammeticus Press www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, BOOKS, SERIES, and MORE The following valuable volumes, spectacular series, and interesting items have been released with pride by Psammeticus Press, an academic publishing house founded in honor of the first and purest of linguistic inquirers: one might criticize his methods, but who could quibble with his results? Follow the links below to learn more about these fabulous books and excellent series, each destined to become a classic in the field. Warehouse Moving Sale We’ve lost the lease on our warehouse and anything we can’t sell we have to move—or rent interns from Speculative Grammarian to do it—and that’s expensive! Help us out and buy a ... [ more ]
A Fair Number More Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, (because they aren’t actually true), gathered at great personal risk of, psycholinguistic harm from actual student papers, by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira This eighth collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them. Reporting on a group project, which involved comparing current uses of a set of words across older and younger speakers. Our individual reports were then put together and improvised. We all did interviews and ... [ more ] 
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Last updated Mar. 11, 2026.