How We Think About the Sounds of Chinese–Any Implications for Psycholinguistics?—Bii Ming SpecGram Vol CLXXXVI, No 1 Contents Rasmus Rask Diamond Puzzle X—Lila Rosa Grau
Psammeticus Press




Blends for FriendsWinning Words for Wise Writers, Worthy Word Wranglers, and other Wanton Wrongdoers
by Blenda Portman-Toe
Published 2020. 84 pages + 943 pages of citations and etymologies

As linguistics continues its meteoric ascendance in the academic zeitgeist, scholarly and even not-so-scholarly writers would be well-advised to “get with the [minimalist] program” and take on the trappings of linguists and linguisticsin order to please and appease their soon-to-be intellectual lords and masters. There’s no better way to signal one’s in-group status than with a bit of jargon-heavy wordplay taken a tad too seriously. To that end, consummate bootlick Blenda Portman-Toe has gathered and shared a collection of linguistics-savvy word blendssampled belowthat are sure to impress your new linguistic overlord friends. Get your copy before the /aɪɚn fɪst/ descends and it is too late!

adjectiverb: a more efficient way of articulating your research interests for excited/bored linguists involved in the study of exciting/boring participles.

Anglo Saxong: a little studied contact language that arose in the mid 8th century between the Germanic settlers of the British Isles and speakers of the northern-most Hmongic language, spoken in south-central China by ca. 0.9 million people.

aspirationions: secondary articulation deployed when eating raw Allium cepa (or when reading satirical online publications such as The Onion).

auxiliary verbium: a piece of functional syntax which, like Erbium, is always found in a combinatorial configuration with other elements in the verb phrase.

Chom-blue-sky thinking: linguistic theories with a bit too much imagination.

circumstantial evidencefix: an infrequent word-building mechanism that allows for more than one interpretation.

derivational morphemerits: points earned for getting the longest possible word.

extraposition cannon: a particle beam weapon that has been moved further to the right on the field of battle for military emphasis.

fauxnology: a poorly analysed sound system.

grammarines: a group of highly trained analysts/annihilists of form-function mapping who are semper fideles to the data.

Henguest and Hors-ah! there you are!: a salutation for welcoming Germanic brothers into your home (in the hope they won’t pillage you).

implosiverifi­cation: the production of evidence favorable to a theory using only an ingressive airstream mechanism.

infixed wing aircraft: a flying machine with its wing in the middle.

lingua-labialternative comedy: left field stand-up of the tongue-on-upper lip (as opposed to tongue-in-cheek) variety.

linguistick: a multilingual bed bug.

long distance dependencyber­netics: the study of how machine-human communication can handle topicalization, scrambling, etc.

morephology: an ever greater degree of word building.

morphologyro­copter: a device for taking a literal bird’s eye view of word formation.

n-ary branchinglish: a lect which is both theoretically unconstrained and interpretively ambiguous.

philollysticks: historical linguistics that sucks.

polysynthesis parameterror: a miscalculation in how large a language’s morpheme-to-word ratio is.

praygmatics: the contextual interpretation conditions on talk with the gods.

Stalinguistics: it’s off to Siberia with you if you don’t understand syntax.

subwayjacency/submarinejacency/substitutejacency: Inability of a wh- phrase to rise out of its clause due to being on the underpass/under sea/on the bench. There are many varieties of this cross-linguistically.

syntaxi rank: an array of private transport hire cars with systematic combinatorial properties.

Uncle Samantics: the personification of that darned federal interference in local meanings.

unihearsal grammar: the theory that all languages die one day.

unimmersal grammarine: a belief that all language will be submerged in a cataclysmic, end-of-days mega-tsunami.

wh-worder of the Garter: Quaint, archaic UK royal honor to those who ask too many questions.

How We Think About the Sounds of Chinese–Any Implications for Psycholinguistics?Bii Ming
Rasmus Rask Diamond Puzzle XLila Rosa Grau
SpecGram Vol CLXXXVI, No 1 Contents