Love Queries of a Linguist—John Miaou SpecGram Vol CLVII, No 3 Contents Even More Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know—Madalena Cruz-Ferreira

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Computational Linguist,
Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill, Chomsky
A New Game for Every Linguist

by Phlange Kadigan
Linguistic Gamesman Extraordinaire

We are almost all quite familiar with the game commonly known as Rock-Paper-Scissors (also known in some circles as Rochambeau), in which two opponents face off, simultaneously choosing a hand shape to represent one of the three eponymous “weapons”. The interest in the game stems from the non-transitivity of the superiority of the weapons. In particular:

Rock breaks Scissors and
Scissors cut Paper, but
Paper covers Rock

Despite the real-world unlikelihood of paper covering a rock indicating a decisive victory, the rules of the game are traditional, if not entirely logical.
Language, as Spoken by Linguists

From the audience: “I have a fuzzy question.”
From the podium: “A fuzzy question, very good. The answer is yes.”

It has come to my attention that the game has had a recent resurgence in popularity, in no small part due to a variant called, straightforwardly enough, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock, which adds a Lizard and a “Spock” to the list of available weapons. Being unfamiliar with Spocks, I have researched the matter and discovered it to be related to one or more of the various Star Trek television shows and movies. I gave up trying to learn more about Star Trek after watching one episode in which the not-very-alien alien ran around saying “Chaka Khan, when the walls fell” or some such.

Clearly, anything related to Star Trek (and thus to a Spock), is beneath the dignity of a real linguist. However, the novelty of an enhanced version of Rochambeau is undeniable. So that linguists may enjoy such while avoiding the taint of Star Trek, I present the following linguistics-themed variant:

Rock breaks Scissors
Scissors cannot hear Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill
Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill mocks Computational Linguist
Computational Linguist reverse engineers algorithms from Paper
Paper covers Rock
Rock gives a concussion to Computational Linguist
Computational Linguist runs with Scissors
Scissors cut Paper
Paper questions phonemicity of Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill
Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill snorts Rock

Scissors stab Chomsky
Paper refutes theories of Chomsky
Rock bludgeons Chomsky
Computational Linguist writes a very small shell script to replace Chomsky
Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill chokes Chomsky

Appropriate hand shapes for Computational Linguist and Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill are left as an exercise for the reader. The appropriate hand shape for Chomsky is the hand open, with the thumb, index finger, ring finger, and pinky finger curled to the palm.

Love Queries of a Linguist—John Miaou
Even More Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know—Madalena Cruz-Ferreira
SpecGram Vol CLVII, No 3 Contents