Most Popular Pages—Today

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1. The SpecGram Quiz to End All Quizzes (7 visits)

The SpecGram Quiz to End All Quizzes. ... Everyone makes Internet quizzes—even your three richest widowed aunts use their mite, if not their might, to bedazzle the gullible and amass those sweet, sweet clicks. So stand aside, ladies, SpecGram is on the make move! There’s a new quiz powerhouse in town, and since we don’t believe in planned obsolescence, you’ll never need nor want another!, Just answer these 17 handy-dandy mutually orthogonal questions to get the answers to all (or at least the 7 most important) of your burning questions. ... [ more ]


2. Podcast—Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIII (6 visits)

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Devan Steiner. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss how physicists rediscovered glottochronology and have used it to date the Iliad less accurately than philologists already had, and in the spirit of such cross-disciplinary enterprise, they offer a helping linguistic hand to other fields, like math, biology, astronomy, and chemistry. ... [ listen ]


3. Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics (5 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!


4. Podcast—Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIV (5 visits)

Language Made Difficult, Vol. XXXIV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by once again by returning guest Devan Steiner. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss whether or not all the forms of "to be" in Indo-European languages are derived from Arabic roots (hint: they're not!), and take on Comprehensive Exam Questions in computational linguistics, pidgins, phonology, and more. ... [ listen ]


5. The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics (5 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 ]


6. The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics Cover Contest (5 visits)

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 ]


7. Archives (4 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 ]


8. Linguistic Old Wives Tales—Sarah M. Isaac (4 visits)

Linguistic Old Wives Tales. Sarah M. Isaac, X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies. Below is a collection of old ƿīfa tales, passed down from professor to grad student across countless generations. As with any such lore, here you will find nuggets of wisdom mixed with nuggets of sh—... uh, not-wisdom. Unfortunately, if you can tell good advice from bad advice, then you don’t really need advice. For the rest of you, good luck! A shoal of Pirahãs can strip the recursion from a language in three seconds. Your thesis committee can smell blood in water from six miles away. In compensation for blindness, the acuity of the other mental faculties is greatly ... [ more ]


9. Panini Press (4 visits)

— 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 ]


10. Lingua Pranca (4 visits)

I U Linguistics Club. Lingua Pranca. T. Ernst & E. Smith, Editors. Indiana University. June 1978. ... i u linguistics club, edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging edging, ... Lingua, ... Pranca, ... fleur ... T. Ernst & E. Smith, eds. ... indiana university, ... [ more ]


11. The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature (4 visits)

The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature. Welcome to Online Selections from The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, researched, compiled, and edited by the lexicographers, etymologists, and philologists of Speculative Grammarian. The editors of Speculative Grammarian are delighted to present selections of the fifty-volume lexicographic opus, The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, online for the first time ever. The Compleat Encyclopaedia is a one-of-a-kind resource, compiled ... [ more ]


12. We Shall Reap the Physicists—A Letter from the Managing Editor (4 visits)

We Shall Reap the Physicists. A Letter from the Managing Editor. They that sow the physics envy, shall reap the physicists. The article has no linguistics; it will produce no truth. Were it to yield insight, hard scientists would swallow it up. —The Scroll of Dwynwyn Gwythyr, Chapter 8, Verse 7. Alas, my friends, I fear that the End Times™ may be upon us. There has been a Disturbing Trend, of late, of Physicists—real and proverbial (including Biologists and other invaders from the Hard Sciences)—making incursions into Linguistics, with their Virus Models and their Naive Glottochronology and their Spurious Correlations between Vowel Inventory Sizes and Physical Distances from ... [ more ]


13. Ministry of Propaganda (4 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 ]


14. Collateral Descendant of Lingua Pranca—Logical Fallacies for Winning Arguments and Influencing Decisions—F. “Al” Lacie, Ph.D. (4 visits)

Logical Fallacies for Winning Arguments and Influencing Decisions. by F. “Al” Lacie, Ph.D. Grand Old Party Linguist. Keeping to the approximately quindecennial pattern established by G.R.A.M.M.A.R. 1979 and Seely, 1993, I am pleased to provide a list of common logical fallacies and cognitive biases used in argumentation in the field of Linguistics (and elsewhere). However, it is not my intention to present these logical fallacies (with examples!) so that you, the dear reader, may learn to avoid them, but rather so that you may learn to use them—if they didn’t work at least some of the time, no one would still be making these “errors”. You may also be able to recognize these ... [ more ]


15. The History of Rome—Advertisement (3 visits)

Now Available from Speculative Grammarian Press. The latest title in our series Books We Take a Loss on for Tax Purposes . This slim yet tedious volume crams over 1000 years of ancient Roman history into more than 100 carelessly researched, poorly written, crudely illustrated pages. But it could be worse: it could be over 200 pages! Here’s what people are saying about Tim Pulju’s The History of Rome: “Not interested.” —Ronald S. Oxford, England, “Haven’t read it.” —Michael Ivanovitch R. New Haven, Connecticut, “Never heard of it.” —Arnaldo M. Turin, Italy, “Proof that some writers of history are neither ... [ more ]


16. Evidence in Defense of the Strong Whorf Hypothesis—Reed Steiner (3 visits)

Evidence in Defense of the Strong Whorf Hypothesis. Reed Steiner. Abstract. Many critics of the strong Whorf hypothesis argue that the evidence is not strong enough. However, a study conducted using four students and a copy of Deniss Villeneue’s Arrival suggests otherwise. Literature review. While most good scholars accepted the strong Whorf hypothesis as an unquestionable fact,1, 2 there is a little bit of light criticism.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 The predominant argument (it’s not a strawman because I cite a woman) is that Whorf wasn’t a linguist.23 However, this argument does not stand up to scrutiny. After ... [ more ]


17. AutoGrammatikon™ (3 visits)

The Speculative Grammarian Auto­Gram­matikon™ Quasi-Universal Translator℠. On several occasions, mention has been made of the AutoGrammatikon™ Quasi-Universal Translator℠ in the pages of SpecGram; in the current epoch, these references date back as early as at least 2004.1 In the following years there have been denials,2 mentions,3 more4 mentions,5 leaked internal documents,6 and even some early oral history7 (accompanied as it was by additional denials). Throughout this time the consistent official stance of the Editorial board of SpecGram has been to deny that the AutoGrammatikon™ exists, ... [ more ]


18. U.S. Government Linguists in Action—A. Nonymous, B. Nonymous and C. Nonymous (3 visits)

U.S. Government Linguists in Action. presented by, A. Nonymous, Linguist (CIA Covert Linguistics Program), B. Nonymous, Linguist (FBI Overt Linguistics Program), and C. Nonymous, Linguist (NSA No Such Linguistics Program), The following transcript was made at a special top-secret meeting of U.S. government linguists. By an unusual quirk of the system governing classified material, almost none of this conversation itself is classified, though the broader reasons for the conversation are apparently classified “eyes-only alpha-level SCI top-secret.” Actually, just mentioning that may have been a breach. Oops. We thought that we would capitalize on this loophole to publicize this exciting exchange of ... [ more ]


19. Psammeticus Press—Chiasmus of the Month Awards (3 visits)

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 ]


20. Palinilap Cimordromic—Center Embedded Passives—Küçük Kaynaranyak Küçük (3 visits)

Palinilap Cimordromic, Center Embedded Passives. Küçük Kaynaranyak Küçük, Universitätsphilosoph, University of Qaanaaq, Greenland. Across the world, increased intercultural contact via business dealings has led to the spread not only of English and other linguæ francæ of business, but also of business cultures. In many industries and geopolitical zones, the two main competitors in the marketplace of ideas are Japanese-style corporate and personal responsibility (up to and including seppuku, as needed) and American-style quicksilver-like shifting of blame. Unsurprisingly, the American way is winning out, in large part because it is ... [ more ]


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Last updated Apr. 6, 2026.