SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

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 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 ]

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 ]

That Tenured Man. Found among the papers of Dr. Theodor Geisel by Sheri Wells-Jensen. This recently-discovered document may explain how and why Dr. Geisel transitioned from a promising career in academia to successful employment as a writer of medium-length rhymed verse. It is additionally hypothesized that this early, unfinished manuscript may have been revised and incorporated into another, slightly lengthier, narrative later in his professional life. That Tenured Man! That Tenured Man! I do not like that Tenured Man. Do you have a research plan?, I do not have one, Tenured Man. I do not have a research plan. Could you write one here or there?, I cannot write one here or there. I cannot write one anywhere. ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLVII, Number 1; August 2009, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLVII, No 1, CONSULTING EDITORS, Ken Miner, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Yahya Abdal-Aziz, Carin Marais, James Stanford, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen, CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kean Kaufmann, Joey Whitford, Pro-Drop it like it’s hot!, ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVIII, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Pete Bleackley, Don Boozer, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, Jonathan Downie, T.B. Geller, Brianne Hughes, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Cathal Peelo, David J. Peterson, Veronika Richtarcikova, Callum Robson, Jessie Sams; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Hortatives Gonna Hortate; September 2013 ... [ more ]

The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics . Cover Contest. ... So, some of the editors of SpecGram got together and edited¹ a collection of articles from twenty-five years of Speculative Grammarian into a book, which they’ve cleverly titled, The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. Being mostly academics, they didn’t really plan as well as they could have, and they ended up sticking a snapshot of an editor’s desk on the cover at the last minute. At the last, last minute, they realized that that was a pretty weird² thing to do, so at the last, last, last minute they decided to turn it into some sort of a ... [ 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. 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 ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CXC, Number 4 Post–Brood X Magicicada, Super Duper Issue ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Senior Editor; Jonathan Downie, Senior Editor, Pete Bleackley, Contributing Editor, Deak Kirkham, Contributing Editor; Associate Editors: Vincent Fish, Mark Mandel; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Luca Dinu, Yuval Wigderson, Editorial Associate, Reed Steiner; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; An Infinitude of Jots and Tittles; Mid-July 2021 ... [ more ]

The Speculative Grammarian Essential, Guide to Linguistics— A Review. by Don Boozer, Librarian for the Language Creation Society. The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics is an anthology of articles, essays, and other content gleaned from the online publication Speculative Grammarian or SpecGram “as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike”. The following scenario might provide some rough idea of the tone of “the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics”: Ben Zimmer¹ and The Harvard Lampoon have a torrid one-night affair (over a spaghetti and lasagna dinner) from which ... [ more ]

In Defense of Silly Satirical Linguistics: Lingua-Laffing as We Totter Into the Abyss. by Irrationally Optimistic Editor Deak Kirkham. So, it’s pretty bad. It’s even worse than the noises first-years make in a phonetics exam and more confusing than native speaker intuitions in borderline cases of wh-island violations. The 2020 lexicon is without doubt or dubiousness statistically unique: ‘unprecedented’ ranks above ‘happy’ ‘carefree’ and ‘light-hearted’ in the Annual Adjective Awards for the first time since 1936 and, in an unprecedented event (there we go again!), ‘global pandemic’ was voted Christianity’s number-one ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXIII, 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: Virginia Bouchard, Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Deak Kirkham, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Samuel Andersson, Florian Breit, Chris Brew, Bethany Carlson, Tel Monks, Mary Shapiro; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Friendly Fire? Don’t Flatter Yourself; November 2018 ... [ more ]

Psammeticus Press, www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, The Fictional Foundations of Natural Language Processing, by Aisling Ní Rudaí & Paddy O’Furniture, Published 2010. Hardback, 621 pages. Price: $82.01 The aim of linguistic science is to be able to characterize and explain the multitude of linguistic observations circling around us, in conversations, writing, and other media. —Manning & Schütze, Foundations of, Statistical Natural Language Processing Where’s my flying car? —Countless children who were promised a technologically, radically advanced future but grew up to be disappointed Though Manning & Schütze open their (in)famous ... [ 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 ]

Minute_DU Mystery_PL, The Case of Death in the Stacks. D. J. Lobos. A number of books had fallen on the body, and Inspector Halledjian pushed some aside to get a look at the woman’s face, which was rather blue. “You say you found her like this?” he asked the librarian. “Yes, I did hear some odd choking noises earlier, but only just found her a short while ago. She was already cold.” Inspector Halledjian looked the librarian in the eye and spoke slowly. “Do you know why she was looking at Austronesian grammars?” “No. But I did see her a few hours ago. She passed the checkout desk earlier and I heard her tell a friend she was ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXX, Number 1 ... 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: Kenny Baclawski, Bethany Carlson, Sophie Elsässer, Rachel Jamison, Katerina Kandylaki, Stephanie Leser, Mark Mandel, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Jona Sassenhagen, Lea Schäfer, Zac Smith; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Ernomahterpoeria; May 2014 ... [ more ]

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