SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

Replies, Rejoinders, Retorts, and Ripostes. A Letter from the Managing Editor. This month’s issue of Speculative Grammarian is full of the usual high quality content—what the kids these days refer to as awesome sauce, I do believe. This month’s sauce, though, is a special blend of old and new—a metaphorical fusion cuisine of updates, follow-ups, and responses to earlier works. In particular, our Letters Editor mentions our (alleged) colleague Al, rebuts an alleged nuclear linguist, and discusses Language Made Difficult, our witty and erudite wireless telesymposium—what the kids these days allegedly refer to as a podcast. Of course ... [ 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 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 ]

English is the Original Language. Modern linguistics has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what many of the ancients, especially Plato, already had surmised: language is inherent in the human from before birth, and the so-called “learning of language” is actually the application of the principles of Universal Grammar (UG) to the limited and faulty performance data of adult speakers in such a way as to make sense of the data. A natural question now arises. What if the child is not exposed to any data? Since UG is inherent, will the child develop language anyway, and if so, which language? My colleagues and I at Stammbaum University became interested in these questions several years ago. Because of the current ... [ 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 ]

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 ]

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 ζ—Physics vs. Physics Envy. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. Introductions are superfluous for those who have been keeping up. Now, to the heart of the matter, in which we discuss the long-recognized but little-discussed travesty of unconfidence in our field of study: ... Up next: Diachronic vs Synchronic. References, Cohen, Joel E. (1971). “Mathematics as Metaphor: a review of Dynamical System Theory in Biology. Vol. 1, Stability Theory and Its Applications by Robert Rosen.” Science, New Series, Vol. 172, No. 3984. Dymetman, Marc. (1998). “Group Theory and Computational ... [ more ]

— http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress Welcome to the online home of Panini Press, an academic publishing house formerly dedicated to the proposition that Linguistics is the noblest of the academic fields, but now with a focus on Subjects of more relevance to the Working Linguist’s everyday life and career. ❦पा Important announcements from Panini Press: ❧ Word Problems for Linguists (November 2025): Linguists, we here at Panini Press know you thought that you’d never again have to do anything more mathematically complicated than figure out the tip on your dinner bill. However, the real world often has other plans, so, for your own good, Dr. Barbara Millicent Roberts’s new book, Word ... [ 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 ]

New speech disorder linguists contracted discovered!. An apparently new speech disorder a linguistics department our correspondent visited was affected by has appeared. Those affected our correspondent a local grad student called could hardly understand apparently still speak fluently. The cause experts the LSA sent investigate remains elusive. Frighteningly, linguists linguists linguists sent examined are highly contagious. Physicians neurologists psychologists other linguists called for help called for help called for help didn’t help either. The disorder experts reporters SpecGram sent consulted investigated apparently is a case of pathological center embedding. Yreka Bakery (Egello College). ... [ more ]

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined again by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a proposal for a new character for "the", and reflect on the coolest features English could have. ... [ listen ]

Mediated Modern Pinnacle Sherpa: An emerging logographic writing system. Keith W. Slater, Iowa Linguists’ Workshop. In Slater (2006) and Slater (2010), I reported that Pinnacle Sherpa has split into two languages. Modern Pinnacle Sherpa (MPS) has massively innovated new, media-driven evidential categories, and as a result it is no longer spoken by older people, who gave it up after being laughed at when they could not master the new evidential distinctions. MPS is spoken, and written, only by the youngest generations, for whom it remains a living language. The oldest speakers, meanwhile, now use Classical Pinnacle Sherpa (CPS) among themselves as a secret language, and they are progressively undoing its historical ... [ 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 ]

Letters to the Editor. Eds, I read with disbelief your news story "Introducing Hawelshi'ian", describing a union of Hawai'ian and Welsh. Are your reporters so out of touch with the world of Merged Language Movements (MLM) that they know nothing of Ms. Mishi Mashu, quoted in the article? Mashu is alleged to be the illegitimate great-grand daughter of Mata Hari. Her purportedly tarnished parentage aside, she is also well-known in MLM circles for derailing several high-profile linguistic mergers and acquisitions. She successfully prevented the Ebonics-Norwegian merger in '92. She also precipitated an international incident in 1996 when she spread such fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of the members of the ... [ more ]

Announcing the rebirth of Speculative Anthropologist!!!. The little known sister publication of Speculative Grammarian, the most prestigious journal in all linguisticdom.. As the new publisher, editor-in-chief, historian, copy boy and militia commander of the too long silent Speculative Anthropologist, one of the greatest (although almost entirely unknown to modern anthropologists (except for a few old, denim wearing anthropologists living in the Northern Nevada desert and using AK-47s to protect themselves from coyotes, black helicopters and UN troops)) journals in the history of human kind, I am proud to announce the forthcoming rebirth of this prestigious scholarly publication in the Fall of 1998. This ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear Editors of SpecGram, In regards to the recently-published “Phonotronic Energy Reserves and the Tiny Phoneme Hypothesis” by Dr. Equus Q. Quagga, I find I am unable to accept his ridiculous hypothesis. What the map of Africa really shows is the aggregated pattern of human habitation; the areas of lowest phonotronic energy are those where the largest number of humans have been for the longest periods of time. See? This provides vital new insights that can help archeologists figure out where to dig. Tiny phonemes indeed! —Edgars P. Allen, Wonkatonk, Minnesota — Dear Eds, We forwarded your message on to Dr. Quagga, in order to allow him to respond directly. Contrary to ... [ more ]

The Oxford Comma: A Solution. Eliza Doolittle. The Oxford Comma has once again raised its nasty little head in linguistic circles, thanks largely to the efforts of one Ms Truss and her book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It is time once and for all to put this little beast to rest. (No, not Ms Truss, you moron--the Oxford Comma). For those of you wondering what the Oxford Comma (OC) actually is, I have one question: what on earth are you doing reading an up-market linguistic magazine like this? So for your delectation and delight here is a definition of the OC: it’s the insertion of a comma after the penultimate item in a list, just before the and--for example, ‘coffee, cream, and ... [ more ]

The Devil’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics; by David Krystal &Adam Baker; From Volume CLXXV, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian,; January 2016 — C-command. A f-formal r-relationship m-made n-necessary by an u-unfortunate e-early c-commitment to b-binary t-trees. (Read by Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Trey Jones, Butch McBastard, Declan Whitford Jones, Claude Searsplainpockets, Joey Whitford, Mairead Whitford Jones, and Zack Sjöberg.) ... [ listen ] ... [ read the article ]

Arguments Against English Spelling Reform. Hermes Trismegistus, Alexandria, Egypt. Advocates of reform—or, to use a more neutral term, reshaping—of the English spelling system are forgetting that the term spell has a meaning outside of linguistics, and that the two meanings are historically and fundamentally related. Just as the word grammar gave rise to derivatives glamour and grimoire, the use of writing in magical rituals gave rise to the noun form spell, meaning a written formula of great mystical power. The writing of spells obviously has great advantages over the memorization of incantations, principal among which is the avoidance of error in the use of ... [ more ]

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