SpecGram—Quotes: 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.

Q600. Hey, this is SpecGram.

—Cosman246

Q599. Mmmm, juicy allomorphs. Trinidadius Functionalisticus, I personally prefer feeding on PPs.

—Kei Pantin Malik

Q598. I feel bad for having laughed at this.

—Ishmael Ho

Q597. If you get this, then you know you’re a serious Linguistics geek.

—Ben Braithwaite

Q596. Speculative Grammarian has many fun elements of English linguistics. My favorite section is about the ambiguity of English.

—Daniel White

Q595. SpecGram, satirični jezikoslovci! Najnovejša študija: Expirations in Minimalism—Zombie Linguistics.

—Razvezani jezik

Q594. I just ... found this hilarious article on Hippies naming their kids (and more). It brings to mind that singer, Prince, who changed his name to a symbol that had no pronunciation.

—Carol (not Coral)

Q593. Love the awesome journal. The pod-cast is phenomenal and certainly the most amusing pod-cast I’ve ever heard! Although, as pointed out in the second pod-cast, post-structuralist literary theory would argue that it is my listener-response which creates the humor and awesomeness rather than anything inherent in the pod-cast itself.

—Apollo Hogan

Q592. For hopeless linguistics majors like me. They describe themselves as “the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics,” and the ‘scholarly material’ they put out is hilarious. And often depressing.

—thirty-second-note

Q591. Des revues un peu “différentes”.

—La commission des programmes en Linguistique
Université catholique de Louvain

Q590. Those are among the most deliciously pithy footnotes I’ve ever seen. But what kind of institution really has a Department of Lexicology and Glottometrics?

—ToussianMuso

Q589. Thanks to you for your outstanding service for linguists!

—Chris Heffner

Q588. A fascinating discussion on the value of umpteen.

—Gruff

Q587. Must remember to revisit [SpecGram] on occasion, in order to stretch my satirical linguistics abilities.

—Chelsea Valentine

Q586. Comedy at its finest!

—Philemon

Q585. My favorite is the phonetic sprinkler.

—Mark J. Harris

Q584. Speculative Grammarian, have I mentioned I love you?

—Christina Castedo

Q583. Yes, you pretty much have to be a linguist already (or well advanced towards that goal) to enjoy Speculative Grammarian: you can’t understand a satire if you don’t know what is being satirized.

—marie-lucie

Q582. It has always seemed to me that Speculative Grammarian assumes a pretty high level of familiarity with academic linguistics. The web page even bills it (satirically) as a scholarly journal. One could say that SpecGram is [+specialist, -bona fide] while the envisioned Linguistics Today would be [-specialist, +bona fide].

—Chad Nilep

Q581. Heh, I love SpecGram. ‘Fifty Grades of A’

—Nikki Trigg

Q580. My love of satirical linguistics has now overlapped with my love of chickens.

—Hen

Q579. Both parents and speech-language pathologists are sometimes guilty of over-analyzing a toddler’s speech patterns. ... Consider that even adults vary tremendously in their sentence lengths. ... One satirical study even parodied the use of sentence length in language pathology, pointing out that adults’ sentence lengths vary depending on the amount of coffee that they have had.

—Juniper Russo

Q578. It might be a good idea if [everyone] were occasionally to read the online journal Speculative Grammarian. It might encourage us to be somewhat more serious about our writing, for let us not ever forget what Sophocles once said:

πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ὀμπρέλλας δεινότερον πέλει
There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than an umbrella.

—Martin Rommel

Q577. How wonderful! ... I think 98% of MLA post-panel Q&A interactions could be categorized as one of those twenty special forms.

—Mike

Q576. That is silly.

—Dennis G. Jerz

Q575. Speculative Grammarian?! How did I manage to never hear of this before?! I have the feeling that my life will never be the same.

—Esteban Vázquez

Q574. Huh! He can’t be serious, can he?

—James

Q573. The difference between phonetic/phonemic transcription is also confusing enough that it merits its own linguistics cartoons.

—aedia λ

Q572. Twórcy Speculative Grammarian nie mogli znieść, że co i rusz okazuje się, że w słownikach brakuje słów. I tak powstała Splekulatywnego Gramatyka Komplaetna Encyklopaedia Historycznych Kompendialnych Leksykonów Rzadkich i Archaicznych Gwar i Nomenklatur. Wreszcie możemy poznać znaczenie WSZYSTKICH słów.

—No-qanek

Q571. A rather clever linguistics joke.

—Captain Haddock

Q570. It took me a couple of minutes to be able to read it and understand the differences, in both the word balloons and the images. Heh...very clever.

—zhanglong

Q569. Which are the rarest vowels/consonants? Definitely the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill—so rare it hasn’t yet been added to the IPA. The proposed symbol is Double Dot Wide O.

—egill

Q568. SpecGram, my life was incomplete. Then I found you. Wow.

—Safina Lalani

Q567. I’ve had no formal introduction to phonetics, but with a little trying, I figured it out... and was laughing my anatomy off for two minutes straight. Thank you for making my day!

—Harder

Q566. You can very well describe some speech with the IPA to the phonetic level (rather than phonemic), but then it requires a much more precise use of the IPA along with its diacritics. The problem with that is that it’s so dense that it’s almost unreadable. My favourite image to show the difference.

—vermillon

Q565. If you love language and words, this is a fun, tongue-in-cheek place to spend a moment.

—Patricia Green

Q564. Thank god I was alone when I tried pronouncing that!

—MäcØSŸ

Q563. Wytłumaczenie wszystkich możliwych słów.

—nosiwoda

Q562. It’s really awesome—I’m going to train hard until I can pronounce this consonant accurately in my sleep!

—Harder

Q561. This is the greatest thing I have ever seen.

—superkamiokande

Q560. It is quite a difficult sound to produce accurately at first. The secret is to be in a deeply relaxed state.

—Splog

Q559. Thought I’d throw a shout out for [the] website of Speculative Grammarian, self-described as “the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics.” I’m not affiliated, but one of my undergrad ling professors is Publisher Emeritus and I’ve found my fair share of linguistic amusement there.

—Rikker Dockum

Q558. Speculative Grammarian (where linguists go to laugh to death)

—Michael Sappir

Q557. This may be a bit too accurate for comfort...

—Tristan Higbee

Q556. I loved all of them so much!

—l33t_sas

Q555. I found this googling linguistic some such one day and I’m planning to do a pre med double major. Naturally, I was moderately annoyed and a bit concerned at an icy soul sucking future. It is a joke, but damn.

—roslicomet

Q554. No matter what I choose I end up in a soul crushing career. Poop. I guess I’ll enjoy my studies while I can!

—Shveet

Q553. Fries. Fries everywhere!

—DismantletheSun

Q552. I picked the closest one to what I really did and it was depressingly accurate. Wish I saw this earlier!

—gortallmighty

Q551. Don’t use it.

—gulinbursti

Quotes—Page 12: More of What People are Saying