“Dear Grammy”—Advice From Your [+agony] Aunt SpecGram Vol CLXIII, No 1 Contents Files in the Wild—File naming practices as indicators of academic introversion/extraversion—Heyókȟa Wakȟáŋ, Ph.D.

Paradigmatically Encoded Logographs
Using SLP to Reveal Divinely Encrypted Communications

by the SpecGram Margo Cult

Grand Poobah, Margo T. Cip
with assistance from
Acolytes, Margo R. T. Ceps (19th Level) and Margo Edi (17th level),
Devotees, Margo Gol (15th), Margo Idua (13th), Margo Llicso (11th), and Margo Nohp (11th),
Aspirants, Margo Ballys (4th), Margo Talap (2nd), and Nairam Margo En (1st),
and
Beverage Procurement Specialist and Xerographic Technician, Margo M. Margo (0th)

With the recent success of our initial foray into Supernatural Language Processing (SLP)including the revelations surrounding not only the divine origin of the first Σπεκουλάτωρ Γραμματεύς, but also the foreordination of ÍslenTölvum and SpecGramour order has been expanding. We have increased our ranks, expanded our hierarchy, polytheistically embraced the entire SpecGram pantheon, the gods of Divine Unification Grammar, Θωθ, and others. We have also sought out fertile new ground for our SLP approach to understanding language.

Our most recent discovery was enabled by one of our elite high-ranking members, who used powerful computational linguomancy to summon her Doppeldoppelgangerganger, which revealed to her hints of hidden truths concerning the strong definite article endings in German. With these divine revelations in mind, a team of members of our Cult called upon Θωθ, the Egyptian deity of Computational Linguistics, to guide our hands as we invoked a host of ghost-in-the-machine learning algorithms. Our steadfast silicon minions did reveal and then stochastically verify our findings.

The traditional, patriarchal, nominativist, mono-numberist, orientationalist method for displaying the German strong definite article endings is given in the table below:

German strong definite article endings
MasculineNeuterFemininePlural
Nominative-er-es-e-e
Accusative-en-es-e-e
Dative-em-em-er-en
Genitive-es-es-er-er

This can be represented schematically as follows:

 \MNFP
N|RS--
A|NS--
D|MMRN
G|SSRR

Using an advanced Simulated Anointing algorithmrecently developed by I. Juana Pelota-Grande and her team at Centre den Geometrik Linguistikento optimize (p < 0.03, ≤ 0.0000487) the formatting of the table according to the principles laid out in the Bloduwed Gita, we arrived at a superior format for the table, which switches the independent and dependent axes and reorders the constituents in a way most pleasing to Our Lady of Linear Precedence.

 \ADGN
F|-RR-
P|-NR-
M|NMSR
N|SMSS

From here we created a tlucogram, a quasi-logographic image based on converting each letter in a sacred snippet of text into an image. The standard conversion target for texts in German is Grubenarbeiter Shorthand, which reveals the following low-resolution, high-significance image:

 \\
 /\
/·|\
|·||

Using law-enforcement–grade “enhance-and-enlarge” image processing software, we were able to resolve additional detail, shown below.

It is clearly a message from Bloduwedda, Our Lady of Linear Precedence, indicatingobviouslythat the PIE Urheim is locatedbased on the styling of the building picturedin modern-day Bavaria. We shall immediately begin a campaign to have this fact recognized and/or propped up with appropriate and/or manufactured archeological evidence. Some confusing linguistic data would be helpful, too. Someone get a grant for Merritt Greenberg and Joseph Ruhlen right away!

“Dear Grammy”Advice From Your [+agony] Aunt
Files in the WildFile naming practices as indicators of academic introversion/extraversionHeyókȟa Wakȟáŋ, Ph.D.
SpecGram Vol CLXIII, No 1 Contents