Here are a few more of our favorite things people have said about Speculative Grammarian over the years, collected wild on the internet, or domesticated in email.
Q400. Some of those are too tough for me. I must be dumber than I thought. The cryptogram with the eêés is one in point.
Q399. A puzzle a day keeps the pedant away: This is for just a few of you... yes.. you
Q398. Oh SpecGram, you make my day
Q397. I love the about us, but really, what does it say?
Q396. As far as I can tell, SpecGram’s current list of authors is entirely made up. Which is a shame, because some time in the past, they had at least some articles written by actual linguists.
Q395. Neatness! It made me laugh.
Q394. This is awesome.
Q393. Telenovelas follow a very similar basic storyline. So the article is saying, they have a verb, where they then give loads of names in a row as objects of this verb, and each fits into the correct place in this schema of a telenovela’s character relationships.
Q392. De a SpecGram
Q391. Egyik kedvenc cikkem szerzője a pszichoanalízis és a kognitív nyelvészet
Q390. A SpecGram, teljesebb nevén a Speculative Grammarian c. online folyóirat igazán szeretnivaló jelenség: remek a címe (hát még a címoldali mottók!), a szerzőgárdája, tudományos paródiáiban pedig nem kímél egyetlen nyelvészeti iskolát sem.
Q389. Nyelvészhumor: SpecGram
Q388. Dans la catégorie langage et linguistique ... Speculative Grammarian, “premier journal savant présentant des recherches dans le domaine négligé de la linguistique satirique.”
Q387. Fag-
Q386. The perennially hilarious Speculative Grammarian single-
Q385. The Inebriation Hypothesis: If you’re not a linguistics nerd, you’ll have to trust me. This is hilarious.
Q384. Ook mooi
Q383. I loled at the last [article].
Q382. As said, a before vowels and an otherwise. We know how/
Q381. How about a mash-up of mythology, cryptozoology and linguistics? Part 1 and part 2.
Q380. LOL! Der Artikel ist ja hilariös!
Q379. This is a good example of how fracturing your thoughts can greatly misconstrue the meaning of your words.
Q378. Here is a fascinating article on why Winnie Illi Pu is not quite authentic Classical Latin as the Romans would have written it. I do not agree with the final conclusion though.
Q377. I read a satirical linguist journal sometimes.
Q376. Loving the new issue of Speculative Grammarian
Q375. Speculative Grammarian is a collection of linguistic satire. There is a load of stuff there, but this set of puns caught my eye.
Q374. Oh my! Pick Astronomy! Wow! Though Ben Browder just isn’t my type. (Or Physics, even better!)
Q373. A humorous take on NLP.
Q372. That’s it. No need to synthesize. Now, you damn lazy linguist, go find one of those!
Q371. [It] reminded me of that genial linguistic magazine: Speculative Grammarian, which I had not read in years. It’s still as good as ever (for an intellectual good laugh).
Q370. In Soviet Russia consonants palatalize you! I laughed so hard at that.
Q369. “Step one: find a native speaker” Amazing!
Q368. Neeerdy! yay: “How to do Fieldwork on Proto-
Q367. I love Speculative Grammarian so hard: “How to do Fieldwork on Proto-
Q366. There are many views on this little mark [the serial comma]. Look here to read one solution.
Q365. SpecGram is full of clever and witty articles on a wide range of linguistics topics and you could be the next illustrious author to be published!
Q364. Stay abreast of breaking research in satirical linguistics with Speculative Grammarian.
Q363. It isn’t easy studying linguistics at university. Not only do you have to keep on coming up with creative answers to the frequently asked question, “so which languages do you speak?” (pi?) but often, you can’t even find your textbooks in a library or a bookshop (linguistics books are found variably with the philosophy, modern languages, psychology, science and even new age sections). No matter how many times you explain that linguistics is “the science of language” or that it involves the study of the evolution, structure, form, history, acquisition and variation of language (among other things), you are invariably met with a look of scepticism. “That’s a real subject?”
There is help, however. Or, at least, company. I was in my third year at university when I discovered Speculative Grammarian (AKA SpecGram), a wonderful, hysterical, satirical, online linguistics journal. A fellow linguist (yes, linguist; linguistician is such an ugly word) pointed me in the direction of the Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics page and once I’d stopped laughing, I managed to move my mouse pointer towards some of the earlier issues of the journal and it’s been keeping me in in-jokes ever since.
Q362. Some of my favourite articles include:
• Why Linguistics Is Not a Science and Why Linguistics Doesn’t Care (some variation of the essay title, “linguistics is a science; discuss” was guaranteed to come up in my Ling101 exam).
• What Is Linguistics Good for, Anyway? (picking up chicks, apparently; damn. To be followed by Love Queries of a Linguist and How They Do It in Linguistics.
• Murphy’s Law as Applied to Field Linguistics (this is why Chomsky wasn’t interested in the language spoken by real people).
• Autodescriptives (this will be wholly unfunny to anyone who has no knowledge of linguistic processes but contains a list of words describing sound changes that have themselves undergone the sound change; rhotacism, for example, means “bunging in an extra r sound” so in this article, it is written as rhotarcism. This article was one of my main revision sources before my historical linguistics exam).
Q361. Jag snubblade över en lite annorlunda handledning på nätet. Den ger tjugo praktiska råd, om inte i konsten att övertyga så i varje fall i konsten att inte svara på frågor. Mycket lämplig för ministrar, ledarskribenter och annat löst folk.
Q360. Everyone knows that umpteen is 61
or 29,101
or 30,505
or 47,318
or 48,020
Q359. Poczytaj sobie SpecGrama to się dowiesz/
Q358. LOOOL. ciekawe, czy ta bibliografia jest prawdziwa.
Q357. Swoją drogą, przypomniał mi się najbardziej leniwy język świata z Gramatyka-
Q356. I take it you’ve never heard of Palinilap Cimordromic.
Q355. Now that we are at the end of the semester some of you may be wondering where a career in linguistics can take you. I urge you not to rule out modelling for book covers. Alternatively, take this illuminating quiz.
Q354. Thanks for SpecGram! It’s a great read.
Q353. Your journal is awesome!
Q352. To me this feels very judgmental.
Q351. And how is “euphoniousness” not the epitome of subjectiveness. The only way I can think of that last “measurement” as being in any way scientific is if there were some way to gauge positive mental reactions according to a variety of sounds. Perhaps this is possible, but otherwise the idea of euphoniousness is so absurdly opinion-