Prevent Sad Holiday Linguists—Get Them a Copy of The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics

Every holiday season, countless linguists have their celebrations ruined by thoughtless gifts given by clueless loved ones. They say it’s the thought that counts, but we know that’s only true if that thought is accompanied by at least some tiny semblance of awareness of a linguist’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

We could try to explain those hopes and dreams and aspirations to you—but we’d have to give you a mini course on phonetics, phonology, and voice onset time first. Instead, we can assure you that SpecGram has the right gift for your linguist loved one—a gift your linguist will treasure for years to come: The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics.

We’ve dedicated decades to bringing humor and laughter to linguists of all stripes, by making fun of all of them. You don’t have to know whether your linguist is an applied socio-phonetician or a theoretical historical syntactician to give them a gift they will treasure for years to come. This book is the most fun a linguist can have with their clothes on—though we have to point out that while reading naked is not the unmarked condition, neither is it infelicitous.

Give the gift that says, “I may not understand what you do, my dear linguist, but I still want you to be happy!”—The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics.

Send your friends and family one of the images below so they get the hint. (More will be added through the rest of 2013, just in case your friends and family are a little thick.)

• If semi-positive reinforcement is your thing, check out 2014’s Because You Can’t Do Everything You Want for Your Favorite Linguist.

• If you know you're just going to have to take care of it yourself, check out 2015’s Hey Linguists!


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