For those newcomers who have discovered SpecGram only in the last decade or so, the logic behind the tradition of featuring linguists on the cover may not be clear. Typically, the featured linguist (or philologist, lexicographer, etc.) is fairly well-known, fairly interesting, or fairly funny looking. For a while, fairly impressive facial hair was also a fairly important criterion. All featured linguists have also been fairly dead for a fairly long while at the time of their appearance on the cover.

In the modern period of SpecGram, the featured linguists have also all been fairly male. (Oddly, we regularly get confused queries about the gender of Franc Miklošič.) With this issue, that changes. Featured on the cover this time is Lucy Lloyd, collaborator with wild-haired Wilhem Bleek (seen on the cover last issue) on their 19th century archive of |Xam and !Kun texts from South Africa.

Readers of SpecGram are invited to nominate linguists and other important figures in the history of the study of language—male or female—for inclusion on a future cover. Please keep the key criteria in mind: fairly famous, fairly dead, and fairly easy to find a picture of. We don’t need a repeat of the Panini near-scandal!

In other news, this issue is the second in our series of summer shorts: smaller, more frequent issues that more readily fit into your backpack or beach bag—perfect for the linguist on the go. While we haven’t skimped on scholarly quality to reduce the monthly quantity, we may have had to skip an installment or two of your favorite series. Don’t worry, they’ll be back when it’s their turn.

	Letter to the Editor
	SpecGram Vol CLIV, No 3 Contents