The Phonetic Clarity Defect in the Drinker’s Speech—The language of cocktails and shooters—Dr. I.R. Superordinate SpecGram Vol CLV, No 4 Contents You Can Earn A Degree In Langualogy—Advertisement

A SpecGram Crossword for Devoted SpecGram Readers and other Linguists and Researchers

by Lila Rosa Grau

If you are anything like me, you are both an avid reader of SpecGram (I’ve been a subscriber since 1946!), and not a big fan of all those complicated “pseudo-Nihonese” puzzles the Puzzle Elves™ have been cooking up for the last few years. [Though see below for recent puzzle contest winners —Eds.] Unlike me, however, you’ve just been sitting there whining about it; instead of complaining, I’ve cooked up a good old-fashioned crossword puzzle, with lots of linguistics, lots of SpecGrammitude, and lots of clues. You should try it! You could even win a prize!*

*Terms and conditions apply. Correctly completed puzzles submitted to the SpecGram offices or electronically transferred by email on or before March 15th, 2009 will be entered into a prize drawing. One or more submitters of such puzzles with be awarded a SpecGram magnet of dubious value. Void where prohibited. Your mileage and/or timezone may vary. Terms and conditions are still applying. The solution and the names of any winners will be given in the April 2009 issue of SpecGram.


Across
1 SpecGram editor Keith
7 The lesser known journal, Linguistic Inquiry, for short
9 Testing that unfairly discriminates against un-mathematically inclined sociolinguists
11 abbrev. for senhor, senior, señor, and sir
13 ___ Pranca
14 Psammeticus Press journal series, Linguistica __
15 SpecGram editor McBastard
17 What most linguistics grad students are not at 7:55 am, even though they have an 8 am “Advanced Topics in Syntax” class
18 Animalistic morpheme
20 Said when the only existing copy of your dissertation catches fire
21 Not to be confused with 12 down
22 iff: __ and __ if (you do remember those logic classes don’t you?)
25 Nahuatl speaker of the 14th C.
27 Psammeticus Quarterly, abbrev.
29 “Masyu Ortograpiu __—Linguistic Boogaloo”, SG CLIII.3
30 PIE-speakers sloshed out of this heim
31 /ə tu lɛtɚ wɚd/
32 Latin parallel of letter between ᛋ and ᛒ in the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc.
33 What understanding and comprehension do in phonology class, to those not meant to be linguists
36 Filler-__ dependency
38 Broca’s __
40 No, not a disdainfully ironic loaf!
42 People of the hanging coffins
44 An inappropriate word for what your linguistic informant does
45 The fourth of seven canonical hours; when many linguists eat lunch
46 Fiery morpheme
48 Change or charge, abbrev.
51 Sumerian sun god
53 What computational linguists do with their programs
57 “Etymology of Timothy“ author, SG CXLVII.3
60 English suffix having a diminutive or pejorative force, as in wast__
61 A morpheme at a whole nother level
62 Ima’s sister, “Umpteen” author, SG CXLVIII.2
63 One of the non-linguist stooges
65 French I
67 An alternate name for an unusual typology
68 Bad morpheme
70 How a descriptive linguist feels after attending an organic chemistry lecture
72 Only living lg. descended from the western dialect of Aramaic
73 Pouch rodent, after Pulju 1991, JLSSCNC I.3
76 Transcription of Hangul jamo ㅔ
77 Blue, but [+snooty]
79 Latin parallel of letter between 𐌱 and 𐌳 in the Gothic alphabet
80 One who badmouths with fancy words
82 “Ta men, ta de, te kai __”, according to Babel’s Editor-in-Chief
84 Average distance to PhD completion
85 Latin parallel of letter between Σ and Υ in the Greek alphabet
86 First person accusative singular pronoun
87 Rare dialectal variant of phooey
1  2  3  4  5  6         7  8         9  10         11  12 
13                                            14                15         16               
17                                            18         19         20                      
21         22                23  24                25  26                             
27  28                       29                30                31                32 
33                34  35         36  37                       38         39        
40                              41                       42  43         44               
                     45                              46                47                      
48  49  50                       51  52                53         54  55  56 
57                58  59         60                              61                      
62                       63  64                65  66                67               
              68  69                       70                71         72               
73  74                       75         76         77         78                79 
80                                     81                82                       83        
84                       85         86                              87                      

      Down
1 Better to be than to be the slappee
2 Fleur-de-___
3 Syntactic theories of the 1970s
4 Acronym never used by tenured linguistics faculty, for whom every day is the day right before the weekend
5 That denomination in which American supermodels, rock stars, and syntacticians may demand payment these days
6 Egyptian sun god
7 Linguistics for __ People, published by Psammeticus Press
8 Even less useful than Esperanto
9 Shorter for ibidem
10 Companion to the quottiod
11 Journ. of the Ling. Soc. of ___
12 /ɹo/, /ɹo/, but not your boat
16 What you have to trust when the data lets you down
19 If 12 down were about a boat, you’d need one of these
23 Transcription for the knights in need of a shrubbery, or a leg joint
24 Orthographic bondage
26 Seventh of twenty-one letters in the original Latin alphabet
28 Functionalists must be this; it’s a Generative world out there
30 What this clue is not
32 It’s not a flap, unless it is, then it can be alveolar, alveolar lateral, retroflex, or labiodental (but only since 2005)
34 You can measure the amplitude of your spectrogram with these
35 “Able was I ___ I saw Elba”
37 Common Latin translation of 31 across
39 OE word for running water or river
41 Argumentum __ silencio, deus __ machina, dulcius __ asperis, __ nihilo; each may live in the Lone-Star State, as well
       42 Indicator of academic authorship
43 __s and ends, pre-folk-etymologization
46 SpecGram editor Tim
47 Über-prescriptive linguistic luddites, SG CXLIX.3, abbrev.
48 The part of a computer overwhelmed by trying to automatically parse polysynthetic languages with complex fusional morphology
49 Third person singular feminine pronoun, accusative or possessive
50 What descriptivists create and prescriptivists destroy
52 English name for the Russian letter derived from Greek τ
54 Godsylla opponent
55 Malay “forest man”: orang __
56 Maybe food, or let’s go hunting, or momentary rabbit-stage, or even undetached rabbit parts
58 Latin parallel of letter between dair and coll in the “Celtic Tree Alphabet”
59 ¨
64 Latin parallel of letter between Н and П in the Russian alphabet
66 German inherits
69 Just shy of a PhD, but worth almost nothing on the job market (just like a real PhD!)
70 An instantiation of proximal spatial deixis
71 Self-referential tripartite acrostic-like entity
73 Non-linguist’s reaction to this crossword
74 Plural of latinate os, or the transcription of Sp. Horra
75 Element from Gr. tekhnētos
78 Poe and Presley initials
81 A long dash (typography is not linguistics, but linguists need to know their typography!)
83 Transcription for Lou, Lew, lieu, Loux, or loo

HanjieLinguru III Solution

Over there on the right is the solution to the third and, at least for now, final installment of HanjieLinguru by Trey Jones, from last November’s issue. It is in fact the IPA symbol ɤ, the ram’s horns, used for the close-mid back unrounded vowel—here rendered in very low resolution at very high magnification, in a somewhat lopsided font. It’s lovely.

Well, you might not think it lovely, but these folks surely do, as they’ve each won a SpecGram magnet for the trouble they’ve taken to get to know ɤ before the solution was published.
  • Declan Whitford Jones of Germantown, Maryland
  • Peer G. Guda of Columbia Heights, Minnesota
  • Jason Lion of Kamloops, British Columbia
  • Joey Whitford of Germantown, Maryland
  • Will Johnson of Kenmore, Washington
  • Erik Gedeborg of Södertälje, Sweden
  • Sara Kessler of Rechovot, Israel

  
SPARV: Swedish sparrow
TERZA: Italian third
OLDEN: English olden
LEIKE: Finnish clipping
PUDAR: Indonesian blur
STOLP: Dutch cover
PELEU: Hawaiian extended
ARDID: Spanish ruse
RZEKA: Polish river
VANER: Danish habits
S P A R V
T E R Z A
O L D E N
L E I K E
P U D A R

Polyglot’s Magic Square Solution

At right is the solution to the Polyglot’s Magic Square by John Miaou, from last December’s issue. This puzzle was a really tough one, but congratulations are in order to the following Puzzle Meister, who solved the puzzle, and will be receiving a SpecGram magnet for his heroic efforts.

The Phonetic Clarity Defect in the Drinker’s Speech—The language of cocktails and shooters—Dr. I.R. Superordinate
You Can Earn A Degree In Langualogy—Advertisement
SpecGram Vol CLV, No 4 Contents