Things We All Take for Granted

A Letter from Supernumerary Editor Weirahl Innitto Gaither

Linguists rarely enter politics—but the reasons for this are murky. For some of us speak one language, some speak many, and some even make them up. The growing disconnect between theory and reality is appalling; just because some language in Nigeria has more words for “yam” than “snow” doesn’t mean that edible tubers precipitate from the sky.¹ This is obviously not the way to do linguistics! The ultimate genre of narrative is, of course, the fairy-tale, but it is among the least studied forms of coherent text in contemporary text linguistics. Why is this? The antithesis of meaning-making is surviving a long-term relationship.

It was after 10 o’clock on a Tuesday when I received the email, and I thought to myself, Who would expect a timely reply to such a thing? (Have you ever found yourself wondering why there are empty cells in the IPA chart?) “Math 160A (Intro to Probability and Statistics) is to be banned for promoting gambling.” The outrage that I feel strip all inflectional morphology from my sentence, and I am stand before my peer froth with indignation and countless deep emotion.

And so, just as the fact that the Russians first encountered Evenkis near the Sym’ River, where /ʃ/ in the dialect corresponds to /s/ in the other dialects, giving us shaman for the common Tungusic saman, so this shilly-shallying simply reflects the underlying “silly Sally.” And, of course, that only applies if you assume that Klingon is a bowdlerized form of Proto-Indo-European.²

If you disagree, you can take your arguments and stick them up Neptune.

	/nuz baɪts/
	SpecGram Vol CLXXXIV, No 3 Contents