SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

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 ]

ADVERTISEMENT What is That Mess on the Cover?. The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics Cover Contest. Last summer, Speculative Grammarian Press released that indispensable tome—The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics—which featured a particularly cluttered but crucial image of a SpecGram editor’s desk on the cover. ... Not only is this ugly image a vital piece of history, it is also key to your ability to win a free, signed copy of the book! It is imperative that you check out the critical contest information, then scour the cover image (high resolution version provided free of ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear Speculative Grammarian, If those fine fellows at the CLAP were to extend their system beyond the limits of kinship systems, they could place the whole of language on a logical, or even philosophical basis. Hopefully some linguists of real character will be able to take up the challenge. J. Wilkins ... Dear John-Boy, We’ve heard rumors from one of our more reliable sources—Jorge Luis of the Borg—that such a system is being developed by a group of philologists and philosophers in China. It is to be entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Language, and the first draft is scheduled to be completed in June—or possibly July if there are ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXV, Number ξ ... Speculative Grammarian, in association with Psammeticus Press, is proud to present a special supplemental monograph: Towards a Detailed Biochemistry of Innate Mental Structures: Consequences of an OT Approach to the Contemporary Novel, by Mongo Yalbag, Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief, Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Monograph Editor, Towards a Detailed Biochemistry of Innate Mental Structures: Consequences of an OT Approach to the Contemporary Novel; Mid-March 2016 ... [ more ]

Announcement The Original English Movement. For decades descriptive linguists and professional prescriptivists--technical writers, editors, and English teachers--have been at war. As most linguists know all too — The Original, English Movement, seeks to resolve the, conflict between, descriptivists and, prescriptivists by, fully embracing the, notion that English, should not, change--not now, not in the future, not even in the past. — well, the prescriptivists say that descriptivism is at best a weak philosophy of usage, and at worst an invitation to grammatical chaos. However, too many prescriptivists maintain what is, to descriptivists, an illogical position: ... [ 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 CLXVI, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, David J. Peterson, Mikael Thompson; Editorial Associates: Pete Bleackley, Cem Bozsahin, Kathleen Brady, Florian Breit, Sam Crusemire, Jonathan Downie, Adam Graham, Daniela Müller, Chris Niswander, Callum Robson, Mary Shapiro, Adam Tallman, Rachael Tatman, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Overly Attached Prepositional Phrase; February 2013 ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLIX, Number 2; June 2010, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLIX, 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, Mathew Block, James Coomer, Tom Dougherty, Carin Marais, Justin Rye, Jessie Sams, Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, Life is too short to wait for data, ... [ 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 ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXVII, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Bill Spruiell, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Adam Baker, Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Robin Day, Carin Marais, David Marino, Tel Monks, Laura Ryals, Mary Shapiro, Adham Smart, Kien-Wei Tseng, Don Unger; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Extraordinary Claims Require Merciless Mockery; November 2016 ... [ more ]

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