SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

“stymie” “mighty” “Amy” “I aim” “sates” “A” “sty” “80” “my” “E” “seats” “I” “aim” Ling-Ken II. Mary Shapiro, Truman State University. This “Ling-Ken” puzzle can be completed using only the IPA symbols /a^j, i, e, s, t, m/. Each symbol can be used only once per row and per column. Each shaded area contains the symbols needed to write the given word or phrase in phonemic transcription. (In actual pronunciation (phonetic), speakers would likely use the flap for /t/ in some words, and nasalize some vowels.) The symbols may appear in any order ... [ more ]

First Names First. by Tim Pulju. Across, 1. Ballpoint bestseller, 4. Sassy, 8. Billy Budd’s captain, 12. South of San Diego, 13. At any time, 14. 21^st-century Walkman, 15. Makes a fall guy out of Mr. Nahasapeemapetilon, 17. Yield, 18. Department store founder, now banished to the basement, 19. A large number (possibly 61 or 30,505), 21. Informant, informally, 22. Edible root eaten as staple, 23. Where the sun is a rare thing, 26. Cover, as with barnacles, 30. Drinks the health of, 31. Artic. feat. that produces pharyngealization, 32. Go astray, 33. Sub, 36. Margaret, in ... [ more ]

EU Set to Standardise Diacritics Following Brexit. In a rare piece of positive Brexit-related news, the EU this week issued a statement regarding the linguistic situation in the bloc post-Brexit. From the steps of the EU’s Brussels HQ, Arnheim Von der Scottleganger d’Urphy, Chief Underlayer of Language to the Bureau of the EU Office of Manifest Destiny, spoke to the press on the topic of proposed linguistic harmonisation of the EU’s languages once English is no longer cluttering things up by being lingua franckic (or anglic), and having far too many tenses for its own good and stuff. Von der Scottleganger d’Urphy said, “Of the 24 official languages of the EU, English is one of ... [ more ]

Poetry Corner. We are fortunate enough to have recently received three fine poems: "Dissection", an original composition by Bryan Allen; "Santacticians Poem", an anonymous example of a traditional holiday-themed form from the Netherlands; and "A Yonge Philologiste's First Drynkynge Poime", a recently uncovered 14th century poem in a familiar style, concerning the exploits of budding Oxford philologists. Read and reflect, consider and contemplate, alliterate and appreciate. --Eds. Dissection. by Bryan Allen extracted from the ether, it lies, black splayed out against the white, sliced open from head to foot, internal structure revealed, glosses pin down slippery meanings, messy particles resisting... the ... [ more ]

The Coming A.I.pocalypse. A Letter from the Managing Editor. To hear the musky Elons and hawkish Stevens tell it, we’re on the cusp of an artificial-intelligence–induced apocalypse. Sure, you’ve got your tense flows in deeply networked neurals, your pcyched system of experts, your goggled searches, your blinged microsloths, your deeply blues, your sons of Wat, your going alphas, your nets in the sky, your ultra trons, your people of interest, and all that—but so what? That’s not an existential threat; it’s an electronic incarnation of a reasonably intelligent, moderately skilled, labor-saving drudge—or as we call them here in the office, interns. We ... [ more ]

B A B E L, “En arche en ho logos.”. Volume I Number 1, March 1990. Babel is a publication of the Worldwide Linguistic Society, which is entirely devoid of responsibility for its content. Copies are available from distribution agents around the world. For more information about Babel, write to the Editor-in-Chief, Tim Pulju, at this address: Dept. of Linguistics and Semiotics; Rice University; P.O. Box 1892; Houston, TX 77251. Babel actively encourages submissions on any linguistic or quasi-linguistic topic. Submissions (which need not be articles—poems, cartoons, etc, are acceptable) should be short (preferably one page, at most no more than three) and ... [ more ]

The Joke’s on Us! Part II, A Review of Alleged Humour in SpecGram. Hugh Merrous, Joe King, and Belle E. Laffgh, Under-Department of Ostensibly Amused Readership. Speculative Grammarian’s Under-Department of Ostensibly Amused Readership was recently put under new section management, who immediately set about reviewing recent reader feedback on the perennial question of whether SpecGram is funny or not, and if it is, whether it is trying to be. This resulted in the following policy decision outcome: we need to do something to establish the humorous intentions and effects of SpecGram. Thus, in the long tradition of formulaic and predictable one-liners,^* ... [ more ]

Get Your Handbaskets Here. A Letter from the Managing Editor. In this issue, we have allowed Skip Tacular, an up-and-coming Junior Editorial Associate, unprecedented freedom to take unprecedented advantage of the unprecedented access he has had in the SpecGram offices over the last couple of years, in order to write and publish an unprecedented article, revealing unprecedented detail concerning the unprecedented editorial process within SpecGram. This is, in a word, unprecedented. It is so unprecedented that, in fact, the senior editorial staff have had to agree to let Skip’s article be published without their review. The only limitation has been that editors’ real names not be ... [ more ]

Christmas Carol Orthography Puzzle. by Mary Pearce. I have just finished heading up an orthography course, so orthography is on my mind. Now I need help with the testing of a new orthography proposal for English. All you need to do is read the proposal and then read the titles of the Christmas carols below. Proposal The orthography is produced from the phonetics of the text spoken by a Brit. So that means fewer ‘r’s than you may be used to. (Sorry, no intrusive ‘r’s in these data.), Only letters in the English alphabet are allowed so that means some digraphs and a bit of creativity that I won’t bore you with. (That should cover any typos.), Vowels and glottal stops are too complicated so ... [ more ]

Ple Nvæn-ila Fieldwork Puzzle. Claude Searsplainpockets. and the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™ Claude Searsplainpockets recently completed several months of fieldwork among a tribe known as the Ple Nvæn-ila. He said that he found the language and the culture to be “quite respectable, but not really worthy of the Bizarre Grammars of the World series.” To keep all of Claude’s hard work from going completely to waste, we’ve decided to turn all his data into a puzzle of sorts. Here is your task: Translate these two sentences, to and from Ple Nvæn-ila, based on Claude’s field notes, given further below (after the Intermission). I heard that two big weird obnoxious ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, RE: Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics, The: Introduction I have not had the opportunity thoroughly to peruse this appalling volume but perhaps I could draw your attention to an error in the Introduction. [Cited on the book’s web page —Eds] It is alleged that the Introduction says: “... progress in getting a few members of the general public to realize that the term “linguist” is not defined as ‘someone who works at the UN doing simultaneous translation’.” Any such progress must be in the opposite direction to most English-speaking people, to whom a linguist is indeed someone adept in more than one ... [ more ]

EtymGeo™—International Edition, Part II. by the SpecGram Puzzle Elves™. Below are clues to the names of a number of international cities. The name of each city is a homograph of an English word. The clues provided are vaguely etymological, and may or may not be sufficiently helpful. Some knowledge of geography will provide assistance, but possibly not enough. These cities all have populations over 100,000 according to one or more random reference works. ???, Australia Scottish, from Gaelic for “heap of stones, rocky hill,” akin to a Gaulish word for “horn” from the PIE base *ker-n- ???, Brazil Via Middle English, from the Latin for “of or belonging to ... [ more ]

How Computers Can Do Fieldwork For You: A Case Study. So, as a very mature and worldly individual—I am 20 years old after all—I am continually surprised by the lack of sophistication among the older generations—y’know, from 30 on up. They seem to be oblivious to the most rudimentary facets of everyday life, like Twitter, Reddit, and Fark. I mean, these people grew up on this planet—not like in Africa or something. Posers. So, as part of my self-designed interdisciplinary degree in International Computational Business Communication Studlies (I love that my advisor didn’t catch that extra “l” until my junior year—too late to ... [ more ]

Linguimericks, Book ७५. I am a big fan of recursion! If you’re not, then don’t cast aspersions, Rather learn cons and pros From a lim’rick that goes, “I am a big fan of recursion...” —α-Betty Abū Gida, Plato etc. were Greeky, Their writings insightful but creaky; They are all now long dead But are still being read By scholars both stodgy and geeky —Dikocrates of Garthens, An odd linguist with manner censorial Told a fantastic, outlandish story you’ll Prolly not credit— But truly he said it— Of a syntax that’s quite non-arboreal —Pumptilian Perniquity, Hapax Legomena The problem with hapax legomena Is, there’s such a humongous ... [ more ]

The SpecGram Inquisition— The Tables are Turned!. A probing of Inquisitor Generalis Jonathan Downie, with Inquisitor Inquisitoris Trey Jones. Early last year Associate Editor Jonathan Downie made the bold move of interviewing several members of the editorial board and distilling the information, stories, and rumor he got in the process down to a one-page article in The Linguist (“Can you take a joke?” 53.2 April/May 2014). Unfortunately, while the distillation process resulted in an intoxicating final product, it removed all the pulpy goodness of the interviews, too. To rectify that situation, we’d arranged with Jonathan and his interviewees to publish ... [ more ]

Things We All Take for Granted. A Letter from Supernumerary Editor Weirahl Innitto Gaither. Linguists rarely enter politics—but the reasons for this are murky. For some of us speak one language, some speak many, and some even make them up. The growing disconnect between theory and reality is appalling; just because some language in Nigeria has more words for “yam” than “snow” doesn’t mean that edible tubers precipitate from the sky.¹ This is obviously not the way to do linguistics! The ultimate genre of narrative is, of course, the fairy-tale, but it is among the least studied forms of coherent text in contemporary text linguistics. Why is this? The ... [ more ]

Modern and Historical Graphical Representations of Structural Relationships in Spoken and Written English Sentential Utterances. selected and presented, with commentary, by, Nattapoŋ Yunloŋ Seuŋyoŋ BFE University, Waikikamukau, New Zealand With the mild splash created last year by Florey’s small but sincere homage, Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog, sentence diagramming (Figure 1) was momentarily en vogue. Of course, it didn’t last long, as any student of the field could have predicted, because diagramming sentences is generally quite a boring task. The general population will look cursorily at a cleverly diagrammed sentence, in much the way they look at car wrecks on the ... [ more ]

Phonemes я No Longer Phun. A Letter from the Managing Editor. In the last issue, I made the mistake of mistakenly alluding to what I mistook for a new social-scientific grand-unification theory that I had mistakenly overheard, and which I mistakenly thought was known as the “SSGUT” (and mistakenly pronounced /wizl/). It turns out that I made a mistake. Several regular readers and subscribers asked me to expound upon the theory, as I described it, and I had planned to do so in this space. However, one irregular reader and non-subscriber demanded (in the form of a legal injunction) that I not further describe nor expand upon the theory. It turns out, from a legal point of view, that no such theory ... [ more ]

The Original Language of Winnie-the-Pooh. Aureliano Buendía, Universidad de Macondo. The text known in English as Winnie-the-Pooh occurs in dozens of different languages. Scholars have long debated the question of what was the original language of composition. One of the most popular hypotheses has been that the original text was written in English. The present paper will use textual evidence to demonstrate the impossibility of that hypothesis and to suggest a more likely candidate. Consider the following lines from the beginning of Chapter I in the English-language version. (1) ...here he is...ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh. When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to ... [ more ]

Most Popular Pages—Today