The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective

Are you in a world of linguistic hurt? The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective (SLAC) will offer you empirical, empathic, emphatic advice you can use!^*

Remember, if you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, then you don’t need advice! So, if you need advice, trust us—and cut yourself some SLAC!

Dear SLAC,

I saw that you recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of your migration to the web. Don’t you think you should check your Indo-European linguistic privilege? Not every language/culture uses a base-ten counting system, so the numerism of your “big round” anniversary is problematic. It’s another tool of oppression for the indoeurolinguistiarchy, which you have clearly internalized. What about Oto-Manguean which uses base 8? Or Nyale in base 4? Nenets in base 9? Palikur in base 7? Or Pirahã, which doesn’t even have numbers? Educate yourself. You should have celebrated your first anniversary, a small-number-of-years-iversary, and a many-year-iversary. Your Indoeuropeanism is showing!

—Shirley Justine Wright

Dear Shirley,

Your decimal-centrism is showing if you assume that 10 is necessarily base ten. We’re not telling which base it is, so you can just guess how many years we have been on the web. The possibilities are infinite!

—SLAC Unit #417961

Shirley, you jest. You must jest; SpecGram has been very assiduous about advertising its multi-platform status. Yes, the “Internet” version is indexed to base ten. Despite the inherent binarism of most computer systems, internet infrastructure has been dominated by those who speak or were required to learn English, or who operate daily in a metric system, so the Internet Edition is geared for that. But the Graviton Resonance Manifold Edition, of course, uses base π, and the Branestream Edition—which, we might add, is the one preferred among the Pirahã, a fact you could have easily verified if you had bothered to think of them as other than a convenient prop for your argument—uses base Unity.

So yes, the version you’re looking at assumes base ten, and doesn’t include the articles on new linguistic phenomena in Branestream “eddies.” You can deal with that, or you can continue to try to hegemonically impose your interface preferences on everyone else.

—SLAC Unit #42696c6c

Dear Shirley Wrong,

Your far-sightedness was widely applauded when, after the great hexadecimal standardisation of BD4, SpecGram celebrated its 1024th anniversary.

—SLAC Unit #50657465

Shirlita, is that you? I.M. Shirley Wright’s little girl? Look at you, all grown up and fighting the good fight! How’s your mom doing these days? Tell her we miss her and we’d love for her to submit another article. It’s been, what—17 years? Were does the time go!? My, my, my.

On to your question—honestly, sometimes it seems like you young and etymologically-challenged woperdaughterticores push linguistic correctness a little too far. I’m all for singular “they” and modal stacking and even a little conlanging as long as no one gets hurt, but we’re no more numerically basist than we are numerological bassists, or numismatically basilisks for that matter.

Are you contributing to the indoeurolinguistiarchy by writing to us in English? I don’t think so. By the same token (or possibly by the same type, depending on your model), we all know that non-computational linguists are often not so good with numbers. Do you hold it against an English speaker when they can’t get a subjunctive right, even in another Hegemonic European Language? I don’t think so. Let them count how they can, poor dears.

And as SLAC Unit #417961 pointed out, who knows what base we’re actually operating in—heck, we may not even know. Though, arguably, the possibilities aren’t entirely infinite because the world wide web has only been around for, what, 200 years or less? (That was a logic joke, dear—don’t get your knickers in a knot.)

—SLAC Unit #54726579

68 101 97 114 32 74 117 115 116 105 110 44

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Truly yours,
—SLAC Unit #466c6f7269616e

Dear 十九五,

You’re clearly not reading all of the editions of SpecGram. All of the Oto-Manguean language versions did celebrate at 8 years, and the Nyale edition is humming along in its four-year celebratory cycle. Furthermore, if you had ever internalized your own numerical system of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, you’d know that you Chinese readers are not due for a celebratory edition for another 50 years.

Sheesh. Do your homework next time, will ya?

—SLAC Unit #4b65697468

Dear Person-who-willfully-ignores-decimalism,

We at the Mayan Institute of Incomplete Calendars are very aware of the debates that will take place in the year 1024.8.64 over decimalism, anti-decimalism, ante-decimalism, post-decimalism and deconstructive decimalism (although none of us have a clue what the last one means). Thus, we can only decry, deplore and de-habituate ourselves to your pandering to the post-soci-pluro-anti-decimal en-capitalists. We wish you a very happy forthcoming year 110.11.11 and hope you will join with us in celebrating SpecGram’s 10th, 9.0.9th and 0.000­000­000­000­000­000­000­000­2nd anniversary without the poor form of complaining about the dating system they choose to adopt.

Nahahuatly Yours,
—SLAC Unit #4a6f6e617468616e

I has can read Spekgram in base 5: paw paw paw paw bite. Hapy 10 years tu yu.

—SLAC Unit #5368657269

Shirley!

Get with the program! Number relativism is over, so over, downright yesterday—forget ethnocentrism, it’s the tacit EARTH-centrism that you’re supposed to take second-hand personal offense at now. Earth years are a completely arbitrary unit of time, so why celebrate the passage of an arbitrary number of them?

—SLAC Unit #4d696b61656c

^* Advice is not guaranteed to be useful, practical, or even possible. Do not attempt at home. Consult a doctor (of linguistics, philology, or—in a pinch—anthropology) before undertaking any course of treatment. This advice is not intended to cure or treat any disease or condition, inherent or contingent. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, except when it is not. “Empirical” means that we asked at least two other “people” whether our advice was good; one or more of those “people” may be voices in our own heads. “Emphatic” means that you may print out a copy of the advice for personal use in a medium, semi-bold, bold, heavy, black, or ultra-black weight of an italic or oblique typeface using an enlarged font size. “Empathic” means that deep down, in the darkest recesses of our blackest heart of hearts, we really, really care ♥—just not necessarily about you.

	Linguimericks—Book ६
	Kill All Phoneticians—Die Lingulelen
	SpecGram Vol CLXIX, No 3 Contents