Quotes—Page 15: More of What People are Saying

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.

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Q450. “No” to serious linguists!

Carin Marais


Q449. I’m loving ‘Language Made Difficult’.

Devan Steiner


Q448. You guys are great, and may Speculative Grammarian last another seven centuries.

—Filip Skwarski


Q447. Something funny from my favorite journal ever SpecGram.

—Beril Tezeller Arik


Q446. What better way to spend a day than solving @SpecGram archive linguistic puzzles?

—UL Linguist


Q445. Far and away, one of my favorite accounts to follow.

—Dan


Q444. Speculative Grammarian is the one and only journal of satirical linguistics. I’m very fond of their Cartoon Theories of Linguistics series. And anyone who’s thinking of majoring in linguistics should try Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics first.

—E-Ching Ng


Q443. Today I read the multi-trill article in Speculative Grammarian and I decided to try the counting song. ... It wasn’t until I tried the non silent 0 variant of Trilaa that I realized that I was making a real fool of myself. For those of you that are not familiar with Speculative Grammarian you probably do not know anything about the ingressive velar voiceless trill, and if you have some linguistic background you might try to pronounce that sound, but I need to warn you: try this at home! And whatever you do, do not try this in public!

—Ingeborg Sophie


Q442. Please do not make the mistake I made and sing the counting song in the university cafeteria during lunch hours! I promise you, if people don’t think you’re a freak before that they’ll certainly think so after seeing you sit there all alone on a table making crazy trills. Does not matter whether you’re good at performing trills or not, they’ll shun you anyways...

—Ingeborg Sophie


Q441. Встретился намедни чудесный сайт «Speculative Grammarian». Местами просто забавно, местами забавно и полезно.

Шаннар


Q440. McLovin it.

Kyle McCord


Q439. I have a feeling I’ll be entertained for hours!

gmixion


Q438. Been hilarious for many many years. I particularly enjoy their comics.

MalignantMouse


Q437. A great satirical linguistic magazine that I think all of you would enjoy.

bbrown1990


Q436. OH GOD IT’S MY LIFE.

—nromenuvote


Q435. Trey Jones at Speculative Grammarian invites y’all to play his cute, and yet somewhat depressing, game: Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics.

Chris


Q434. Some of my favorite linguist humor—U.S. Government Linguists in Action

Michael K


Q433. Чудесный сайт SpecGram: забавно про лингвистику. Местами просто забавно, местами забавно и полезно.

Нина Вилл


Q432. While I have your attention, let me thank you, the other editors and the contributors for the many hours I have misspent in laughing through the SpecGram archives. Sophomoric or sophisticated, hieratic or half-witted, it has always been a pleasure. You-all are furthering the grand millennia-plus-centuries tradition of SpecGram.

—Rick Bryan


Q431. Must remember to not listen to SpecGram podcasts on the bus—I don’t need any more dirty/confused looks from undergrads.

Devan Steiner


Q430. Latest SpecGram podcast (Linguistics Wars) made my morning. So good

Devan Steiner


Q429. Ahh, nothing like good nerd humor in the wee hours of the night.

kristina kilpatrick


Q428. Ok, half the time you guys intimidate me (and I get paid to write). Thanks for the daily education!

Rick DiBiasio


Q427. I stumbled into this haven [(SpecGram)]… It’s like an STD, only much, much more desirable: one that we wish would spread more widely.

—Rivkah Wood


Q426. Check out [SpecGram]. They have about one cool puzzle an issue, and it’s all damn funny.

iwsfutcmd


Q425. Got my new edition of Speculative Grammarian in my inbox today—and what a treat! This issue is all about fantasy languages and the cliches used in it... Have a read—it’s really funny! And something to keep in mind when creating languages.

—Marsh


Q424. In-jokes for the linguists.

—rebus


Q423. The editor emeritus (Tim Pulju) is the most popular linguistics professor at Dartmouth College, and for good reason. His classes are as entertaining as SpecGram, if not moreso. Also check out Lingua Pranca—it’s exceptionally witty. And the “choose your own career in linguistics” adventure story is worth more than a few run-throughs.

—ljohns77


Q422. The site bills itself as the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics. With links to back issues, puzzles and games—this site is highly recommended for linguists.

—daokta


Q421. I have never heard of satirical linguistics until I found [SpecGram]—and have been totally engrossed (and lost!)

—weepingbeauty


Q420. Вообще, сайт достаточно забавный, нечто вроде «лингвисты шутят». Мне там еще понравился «индоевропейский кроссворд».

Хельги Вёльсунг


Q419. Интересно, почему я не набредала на эту штуку раньше: SpecGram. Например, комикс про Google Translate. Или загадка “найди семь отличий”. Или, например, как надо работать с информантом. Вообще такого прекрасного (действительно прекрасного) дикого гона я давно не видела. Плакал мой вечер :) Номера целиком тоже достойны похвалы. Ы.

Наташа


Q418. Hahaha! That’s brilliant, and not entirely untrue.

Anneliese Satz


Q417. This wonderfully weird article claims that the “ther” is evidence that the original language of Winnie the Pooh is not English, and it was translated from Gallo-Romance or Old French, although the stories themselves are much, much older.

—CalMeacham


Q416. One of my resent favorite articles is “Draw Me A Linguist”. I do believe this represents most people’s stereotypical thoughts about linguists, not only children.

—Margaret Fuller-Slack


Q415. Can’t get enough of SpecGram: Turn-offs: fervent lexicalism, fervent anti-lexicalism, and claimed biological inability to perform trills

—Ingeborg Sophie


Q414. SpecGram’s puntheon of mytholingual entities.

Stan Carey


Q413. Hilarious!

—little jo


Q412. Seems more like a critique of English then anything else. This is what happens when you speak a mongrel language.

CushBowl


Q411. This is hilarious.

Karen McCarthy


Q410. I enjoyed it somewhat.

William Dambe


Q409. It’s hilarious to the linguistically-minded. Phoenician syntax is gold.

—Tubberella Phillips


Q408. Did you really think someone was going to fall for this?

Veikko Suvanto


Q407. Great examples

Eric Torreborre


Q406. Syntactic ambiguity explained with cartoons!

Fabian Steeg


Q405. 유서 깊은 언어학 개그의 본산 Speculative Grammarian의 트위터 계정 @SpecGram

—tzxi


Q404. I did get a good chuckle from Elwin Ransom’s piece, “On the Applicability of Recent Theoretical Advances in Linguistics to the Practice of Fieldwork.” And really, what more can I demand for the price of my subscription?

Chad Nilep


Q403. I will admit that I seldom read SpecGram, as fans call it, since I don’t really enjoy its brand of humor, generally very dry, deadpan satire of academic writing and more specifically the discourse of descriptive and theoretical linguistics.

Chad Nilep


Q402. Several very nice things in this issue, anyhow, kudos.

—Alex Fink


Q401. Man, I read the issue last night, and figured that one of the SpecGram cabal must have invented the morphome for its purposes.

—Alex Fink


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Last updated Nov. 29, 2019.