Special Supplemental Letter from the Editor

This is a grand moment in the history of philology. That gets said fairly often around the SpecGram offices, but this time it is true. A groundbreaking essay—written in 1859 at the University of Edinburgh by sophomore philology student Churles R. Darewin in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a Bachelors of Arts degree—has been accidentally discovered in a dusty old cabinet by the British Philological Survey after being lost for over 150 years. Dr. John-Boy Luddite, executive director of the Philological Survey, said, “This is quite a remarkable discovery. It really makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections.” The paper itself was discovered by Dr. Howie Fhtagn-Lovecraft: “While searching through an old cabinet, I spotted some drawers marked ‘unregistered student essays’. I can’t resist a mystery, so I pulled one open. What I found inside made my jaw drop!”

Indeed, our collective editorial jaw has dropped as well. Though this work is surely based on ideas presented earlier by Sir William Jones and others, there is a grandeur and breadth of scope that certainly represented a novel contribution to philology and comparative linguistics at the time. That the name of Churles R. Darewin is not more celebrated in the annals of philology is nothing less than an unsolved crime. In fact, our team of investigative forensic linguists is on the case now; early reports indicate that there are striking similarities between this work and a more famous one on a circumspectly-related topic that was published later in the same year. The conclusions are not yet conclusive enough to be totally foregone, but the evidence mounts.

No matter, you, gentle reader, may enjoy the fruits of this serendipity immediately, and leave the claims of plagiarism, intellectual theft, and the wholesale subversion of natural philology to the gossipmongers.

Thus, Speculative Grammarian, in association with and under the auspices of Psammeticus Press, is proud to present this monograph as a special supplement to Volume CLXIV for our subscribers—as well as our other, less remunerative readers.

	On Variation Under Earthlings—Churles R. Darewin
	SpecGram Vol CLXIV, No κ Contents