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1. Archives (7 visits)

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 ]


2. Vol CLXV, No 4 (7 visits)

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 ]


3. Ministry of Propaganda (6 visits)

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 ]


4. Merchandise (5 visits)

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 ]


5. Quotes: What People are Saying (4 visits)

Quotes: What People are Saying. Here are a few of our favorite things people have said about Speculative Grammarian over the years, collected wild on the internet, or domesticated in email — Q1117. C’est sans doute un humour un peu ésotérique mais bon —Sémioticien du bisou — Q1116. Support the addition of the double-dot wide O to the IPA chart by buying some Speculative Grammarian merchandise! No, I’m not being sponsored or getting a commission from them. I just appreciate good geeky humour —Grace Teng — Q1115. Speculative Grammarian ist die erste Zeitschrift für satirische Linguistik. Kostenlos zugänglich, ein ... [ more ]


6. Linguimericks & The Lingumerickocalypse—Book १०५ (3 visits)

Linguimericks & The Lingumerickocalypse, Book १०५. Though tempted I am to critique The French orthographic physique, When comparing with English I find naught to distinguish, So I’m saying they both have “mystique” —Roman C. S. Pelling, There truly is just a small touch Of irony, not very much, That the Teutonic sounds In Germany’s towns Aren’t called by the apt name of “Dutch” —Joost van Deutscher, Common Sense[i]s My Japanese Linguistics teacher told me, ‘Antonyms are pairs of lexemes with opposing senses; Lexeme A has sense A and lexeme B has sense not-A. Common sense, eh?’ As this definition opposed my senses, I asked, ‘Teacher, ... [ more ]


7. Vol CLX, No 2 (3 visits)

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLX, Number 2; November 2010, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLX, No 2, CONSULTING EDITORS, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Bryan Allen, Bethany Carlson, Carin Marais, Jessie Sams, Tom, Stinnett, Nick Williams, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, Coarse and General Linguistics, ... [ more ]


8. The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics (3 visits)

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 ]


9. Οrthоgrаphiс Реrрlехеr (3 visits)

Оrthоgraрhіc Perрlехer. Welcome to the Speculative Grammarian Оrthοɡrаphіс Ρerplехеr! This not-quite-pointless little tool will munge your text, randomly replacing some characters with homoglyphs that are nearly identical1—or at least quite reasonably similar to the untrained eye. Why? To make text both very hard and very easy to find via normal search (try to find “οrthoɡrарhіс реrрleхer” on this page, for example); to confuse and amaze your friends and enemies alike;6 to pass the time in a ... [ more ]


10. Increasing Linguistic Self-Referentiality in Weird Ways—Γραμματο-Χαοτικον (3 visits)

Increasing Linguistic Self-Referentiality in Weird Ways. Γραμματο-Χαοτικον. As part of our ongoing mission to make the world of language a lot more interesting, we want to encourage our members—and the general language-using public—to increase the unusual self-referentiality of language. As an illustration, the word weird is a little weird, because it doesn’t follow the i-before-e rule.* We propose that, for example, out of whack and wacky should be made slightly out of whack and slightly wacky, respectively, by pronouncing them with the opposite ... [ more ]


11. A Final Word on Fame, Formulæ, and Linguistics—Jonathan van der Meer and Lagâri Hasan Çelebi (3 visits)

A Final Word on Fame, Formulæ and Linguistics. Jonathan van der Meer and Lagâri Hasan Çelebi, Center for Computational Bioinformatics and Linguistics, NYC, NY. While we enjoyed reading the recent articles by Slater (“Strings and Things: A Unificational Meta-Theory for All Linguistics” SpecGram CLXVII.2, 2013) and Colden (“On the Quantum Nature of Linguistic Fame” SpecGram CLXVII.3, 2013) because they bring much needed attention to matters of fame, formulæ and linguistics that are near and dear to our hearts, we were sorely disappointed in the timing and direction of their efforts. As a result, we have a couple of important messages for Slater and Colden: ... [ more ]


12. Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics (3 visits)

Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics. by Trey Jones. As a service to our young and impressionable readers who are considering pursuing a career in linguistics, Speculative Grammarian is pleased to provide the following Gedankenexperiment to help you understand the possibilities and consequences of doing so. For our old and bitter readers who are too far along in their careers to have any real hope of changing the eventual outcome, we provide the following as a cruel reminder of what might have been. Let the adventure begin ... [ more ] Book!


13. A Love/Hate Relationship: Pesky Antonyms—Jessie Sams (3 visits)

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 ]


14. Vol CXCV, No 3 (3 visits)

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 ]


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Last updated Feb. 19, 2026.