The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics
Video Contest

Do you love SpecGram even though you haven’t bought a copy of the new SpecGram book? Well, now you can win a copy!

All you have to do is make a video—between thirty seconds and two minutes long—explaining why you want, need, and/or deserve a copy of the SpecGram book. Your tale can be comedic, dramatic, tragic, or bombastic—but it needs to be fairly brief. If you have more ideas than you know what to do with, you can submit up to three separate videos—but you can only win one prize.

The SpecGram Editorial Board will hold a super-secret double-blind ballot to select five winners. Each of the five winners will receive a copy of the SpecGram book, and we may hand out some additional prizes for highly qualified runners-up.

To enter, upload your video to your favorite video sharing site, email us a link and tell us your name and the title of your video (we’ll post links for everyone to enjoy). Send your message to Do not send us video files directly. If you melt our mail server, you will be disqualified.

Entries must be received by May 4th, 2014. Winners will be announced by June 1st, 2014, and notified by email.

Winning Entries

• Rasmus McRask—Rasmus McRask of the Clan McRask
• Tuuli Mustasydän—Studying Abroad
• Audie O. & Hannah Graham—We Didn’t Start the Satire!
• Vince Wilson—I Study Linguistics
• Trey Jones—Grrr!
  Yeah, that’s right, I’m going to win a copy of my own book if no one else enters!

Additional Contest Rules (Read Carefully—No, Seriously!)

• You must be 18 years or older to enter. If you are a budding young proto-linguist, a parent or legal guardian will have to submit your video for you.

• By submitting your video for consideration, you are granting SpecGram a non-exclusive license to republish the video on the SpecGram website and as part of the SpecGram podcast (whether you win or not). Ownership of the video remains with you, the creator of the video. (You are just agreeing to let us make a copy and share it with other people.)

• Videos that violate the terms of service of the video sharing site on which they are hosted may be disqualified. Videos that are removed by their creators or by the video hosting site before the announcement of the winners will be disqualified.

• Videos that violate the copyright or other intellectual property rights of others will be disqualified. Be really careful with music and images, please. Most everything on the internet is not free. Wikimedia Commons is a good place to find material that is both gratis and libre (though you still have to give credit). If you use material that is not your own or in the public domain, be sure to include licensing information in the credits of your video, either on screen or in the description accompanying your video. (You may use the SpecGram name and logo, and images from the SpecGram website in your video if you want, but permission to do so extends only to videos created for this contest. You can credit them as “Images from SpecGram.com used by permission.”)