An Editorial Comment on ElHaye and Jiŋkins

Butch McBastard and Jonathan van der Meer

We, too, have been “watching with interest” (ElHaye and Jiŋkins, 2011) the “ongoing” cosmolinguological “debate” among several well-known and well-respected physolinguists. As supporters of free speech and vigorous debate, the editors of Speculative Grammarian encourage and support the energetic exchange of ideas, even when those ideas are tripe. Thus, we felt compelled to let ElHaye and Jiŋkins have their say, even though their anti-lexicalist and anti-Bloduweddan comments are anathema to even the least tolerant among us. (However, of note, their anti-Chomskyite implicatures are generally acceptable to all but the most tolerant among us. Funny that.)

So, while we have printed their response, we feel the need to go out of our way to remind readers that in no way does publication require endorsement, no more so than the contrapositive notion that disagreement requires censorship.

We have taken the word of ElHaye and Jiŋkins at face value, despite our deep reservations that their idiosyncratic theolinguistic notions are nothing more than a weak façade for an ugly and unctuous underlying prescriptivism. Gentlemen, if you are going to engage in prescriptivism, at least be up front about it.

With that, we offer hearty congratulations to the Chiasmus of the Month Award winner for February 2011!

Joseph Greenberg (ed.), 1963, Universals of Language. The Hague: Mouton Joseph Greenberg, 1966, Language Universals, Cambridge: MIT Press. Chiasmus of the Month February 2011

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