From the Archives!—Satirical Linguist’s Hat

The SpecGram Archive Elves™

As reported earlier, our very own Butch McBastard uncovered a satchel of papers and other miscellanea labeled, “Top Secret SpecGram Time Capsule, 1964—Do Not Open for 50 Years!” While the SpecGram legal team continues their spasmodic argufying over probable incriminating evidence proprietary information, we thought we would share another interesting SpecGram relic.

Here are some photos of the seventeenth archival item, the Satirical Linguist’s Hat. Many a Speculative Grammarian or Lingua Prancker has said something along the lines of, “Of course, this paper was written with my satirical linguist’s hat on.” Most people don’t realize that this—when done with proper respect for tradition—is literal truth. September’s retrospective issue featured a rare portrait of Rasmus Rask wearing his beloved Satirical Linguist’s Hat.

Of apparent^* Central Asian design, a traditional Satirical Linguist’s Hat comes in any of several colors. The most orthodox designs feature stylish ear flaps, which also conveniently stop the purity of one’s theories from being contaminated by the messiness of real language. The supposedly semi-magical glyphs covering the Hat come from a variety of writing systems, and their decipherment is a rite of passage for initiates. Haitch and Eng also usually feature prominently, representing the dual “ha ha only serious” nature of satirical linguistics.

In addition to its use as inspiration during The Writing of Papers, a Satirical Linguist’s Hat is also worn on a number of ceremonial occasions—many of which are difficult to remember the next morning—including the Ceremony of the Reification of the Metaphors, the Observance of the Objects, the Rite of the Discontinuous Morpheme, the Sacrament of the Subscripts, Indogermanischen Urlaub, the Liturgy of the Logophor, various retirement feasts, and the Ritual of Rhyme and Rhotacization, as well as the significantly less bacchanal Refusal to Turn Up the Heat Before February.

More to come...

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