What is the Sound of One Vocal Cord Flapping?
A Letter from the Managing Editor
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The organisers of the international congress “Langage du travail, travail du langage,” held at Université de Toulouse, October 2008.
Chiasmus of the Month
December 2013
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As we approach the close of another year, and with it the close of the CLXVIIIth issue of the modern era of SpecGram, the mind drifts readily toward larger questions of life, purpose, and meaning. Then, of course, I realize that we already have semantics, so meaning is more-or-less covered. All we need now is zoölinguistics and teleolinguistics, and we can stop worrying about “life” and “purpose”, having left their study and understanding to well-trained professionals. I’ve dashed off a memo to the research department, so that’s that sorted.
If that strikes you as an inadequate level of profundity, you can always turn it up to 11 and contemplate a linguistic koan or two, such as “What is the sound of one vocal cord flapping?” (Clearly the answer is wabba-wabba.)
As for myself, I’m going to offer up to you, Gentle Reader, this wonderful, slightly oversized issue of Speculative Grammarian (with an old-school linguist-of-fairly-interesting-facial-hair on the cover) then kick back and enjoy the fruits of years of hard labor—other people’s, of course—and stop worrying about purpose, forget about deadlines, relax and just
