Transparent Transformational Transitions—A Letter from Transient Editor Kmikhar Akde SpecGram Vol CLXXXIX, No 3 Contents /nuz baɪts/

Letters to the Editor


Dear sirs:

I must write in to express my genuine pleasure at your taking a proper disciplinary approach to the metastasizing poetastasizing in your letters in the April issue. Above all, I salute your acuity in working to prevent the spread of false and pernicious philosophies of language: “And we had better not hear of you communicating with that awful Montague boy, either!” Quite so. If you don’t nip that bunk in the bud, next thing you know she’ll be claiming that Pascal and English smell as sweet and end her days churning out sonnets by AI under the slogan “Formal grammars for poetic forms” or something.

Sincerely,
Bill Tridenttremor

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Dear Spear Shaker,

We’re delighted to inform you that, following a successful interview, Ms Juliet Capulet has been appointed Third Assistant Under Editoress-in-Chief (Verona section) for SpecGram. She will have oversight of the Montague Grammar steering group and will advise the Executive Group for the Iambic Pentametrization of SpecGram.

We’ve passed your letter on to her, good sir—
To her and to her brothers, tall and strong—
And they, no doubt, will shortly be in touch.

—Eds.

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Dear Eds,

I write to inform you that I started wailing on reading your recent characterisation of overgrown Teletubby Tinky Winky as ‘demonic’. It’s like saying the Noo-noo shouldn’t be Poet Laureate or the Tubbysyntax lacks a VP.

Yours disappointedly,
Baby Davy, aged 5

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Eh-oh Davy-wavy,

Time for Davy bye-bye!

—Eds.

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The subtly inserted (i)
Did not avoid this man’s keen eye
He calls out a foul
At the (included) vowel
So begins another day bye and bye

Keane I.
Kenai, AL

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[We let the poetical author and authorial poet herselves respond. —Eds.]

Some dictionaries offer ‘doctorial’
Consider, sir, this form: ‘authorial’
So by an-a-log-y
I have set myself free
From your judgements, wrong and dictatorial

—Mrs Strawberry Pudding

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Yo, punks:

In your latest issue, you dared to suggest that LI is “like Speculative Grammarian, only without the lolz.” You yet again signally fail to show respect to your betters. LI is the in-house organ of the Chomskyan establishment; SG is the outhouse rag of a rather seedier establishment.

Insincerely,
Kaiser Sammy J.

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Dear El Cid Caesar,

Don’t try to bully us with your highbrow mobster faux elitism, tough guy. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. You know y’all couldn’t find your /æ/s with both hands and a flashlight.

—Eds.

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Speculative Grammarian accepts well-written letters commenting on specific articles that appear in this journal or discussing the field of linguistics in general. We also accept poorly-written letters that ramble pointlessly. We reserve the right to ridicule the poorly-written ones and publish the well-written ones... or vice versa, at our discretion.

Transparent Transformational Transitions—A Letter from Transient Editor Kmikhar Akde
/nuz baɪts/
SpecGram Vol CLXXXIX, No 3 Contents