Dear Sirs,

Can I echo the concerns raised by your correspondent Oodles O’Ool in the last issue re the hiring of a resident poet. Further to those observations, may I enquire why SpecGram needs a resident poet? Are you intending to also take on a resident architect, unicorn wrangler and top hat-and-tails manufacturer and distributor? These seem as SpecGrammatically non-core as the hiring of a poet. If so, again, I’d request that any such plans be made clear at the upcoming annual general meeting such that shareholders can vote on them?

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Dear Hump,

We have no plans to hire for any of three roles you mention, although discussions are underway regarding a possible Occasional Weekend Visitor in Weeding and a Pop-Over-In-Five-For-A-Quick-Cup-Of-Coffee-And-A-Chat-ologist in Brusque Replies, both of which clearly address well-identified lacunae in the SpecGram strategic five-year plan.

As to remuneration, all Resident and related roles are paid in Latin derivational morphemes and beanbag coupons which themselves grow on the magical Booble-Booble Tree in the SpecGram arboretum and are harvested by SpecGram volunteers. There are therefore no financial impacts of these planned hires.

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Dear Eds,

Ithought your article on diaeresis made two good points, although they might be over some people’s heads.

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Dear Derek,

You’re dotty.

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Dear Editors,

I am in shock at your coverage of the Scots Wikipedia shock. Saying that the articles were just “badly spelled English” isn’t quite true. He did get some entries from a Scots-English dictionary. The “badly spelled English” are those written by editors in the US.

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Dear Schotts,

Will ye no ha a wee dram and relax?

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Dear “Editors”,

In a recent article you licensed the publication of an item of “data” so semantically incongruous as to lend the impression that your “editorial” processes are nothing but a sham. I refer, of course, to the patently laughable “She wore a blue cardigan and gloves”. Apart from the abject failure of English to adequately differentiate utterly incommensurable actions/states of attiring (i.e., properly robust languages encode the wearing of these two items with different verbs), this example illustrates a total lack of awareness of the basic tenets of acceptable dress; no one who is anyone would be caught dead with gloves and a cardigan at the same time.

Once again, Speculative Grammarian demonstrates a level of ineptitude in real world awareness so extreme that it causes us to reject what might otherwise have been an insightful bit of argumentation.

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Dear “Colleagues”,

While we deeply appreciate the fact that you took the trouble to read our article, we’d like to point out that we do not read your journal, and the decidedly unfriendly tone of your letter reinforces our decision. Please do us the favor of confining your future opinions within the circle of your own subdiscipline.

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Sirs,

Re your recent initiative: nice move! I didn’t achieve financial independence at the age of 8 and obtain a self-awarded PhD in the phono-semantics of psycho-syntax by swearing. No sir. ‘I swear by not swearing,’ as my old scout master used to growl.

That said, might I venture to challenge your orthography a touch. To wit: ‘Ling-mind-your-language-uistics’? Er, not quite. Actually: <Li>[ŋ]<-mind-your-language->[gw]<istics>. Say it; you’ll see. Elicit it from a representative sample of the population and you’ll see even more. My point: by inserting the vulgar infix, the orthographic resultant dis-matches the phonic string. Example 2: ‘palata-phroomphin’-alisation’. Again, whoopsies! An epenthetic <a> has auto-epenthetically epenthesised its naughty self—to the ruin of all.

By all means dispense with infixational vulgarity—’n’ wiv me blessin’! But don’t please do it at the expense of accuracy in orthography. I didn’t raise five children on tuppence ha’ penny a week and see 3.2 of them toddle off to Oxbridge by the age of 7, or obtain a self-awarded MSc in cognitive geo-moraics through falling foul of [...]:<...> asymmetries—especially in relation to infixational vulgarity avoidance!

Keep up the good work!

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Dear Out for the Count,

Un-we wonder what we can write here that doesn’t violate VAPID-believable.

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Dear Eds,

I am the auxiliary be as used in the passive construction. It has recently come to my attention that you made explicit reference to me in a poem in your periodical senza any prior discussion of rights and permissions. Please contact me immediately or I’ll be you in court!

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Dear Was,

Alas, you reveal yourself an imposter. Your ‘cunning’ attempt at self-reference in the final line of the body of your email indicates that you are in fact none other than copular be with a nominal predicate.

Our lawyers inform us that such an act of heinous deception renders any claim you may have against us null and void and we consider this correspondence closed.

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Dear Diacriticists,

You think you’re acute and clever bunch, but you’ll never get anywhere with these caron-and-stick tactics. Everyone will realize sooner or later that you’re just circumflexing your muscles, and there will be grave consequences once your audience learns to tilde difference between truth and lies. So quit macron a nuisance of yourselves!

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Dear Sid Iller,

You seem sad/iller than we think is healthy. We think you’re having a dire crisis.

Just breve.

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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.

	In Defense of Silly Satirical Linguistics: Lingua-Laffing as We Totter Into the Abyss—Irrationally Optimistic Editor Deak Kirkham
	/nuz baɪts/
	SpecGram Vol CLXXXVIII, No 4 Contents