Sumer Is Icumen In: Setting the Agenda, Broadening the Appeal—Mr M E Middle-English SpecGram Vol CXCIV, No 1 Contents Bʀoᴋɛɴ Nɛws Nɛᴛwoʀᴋ

Letters to the Editor


Dear Eds,

In your recent examples from the 213th Edition of The Prescriptivist Handbook, you implied that Danish is not a Germanic language. This came as a surprise to me, as I am a Dane myself and have found Germanic languages to be substantially similar to Danish. Perhaps you meant to write “Swedish”?

Sincerely,
Dr. Motto Yesperson

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Dear Yesman,

Your confusion, while understandable, is not due to any error on our part. The word “Danish” (or, more accurately, “Dan”) can refer to one of two things: (1) a Scandinavian language spoken in Denmark, (2) the language spoken by Dan, a roving language salesman who once showed up at our offices to convince us to buy what his brochure said were a variety of gently used acrolects. The former is Scandinavian and thus not Germanic, whereas the latter does not appear to belong to any language family of which we know. We hope this helps clear things up.

—Eds.

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Dear Eds,

Your recent article on the plural of sheep was lambentable. It read like it was rammed through a letterbox and the writing was only Soay so. Are you really going to try to pull the wool over our eyes with such sheer cheek? I suggest that you farm writing out to people with more experience in the field.

Yours,
Bovis Aries

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Dear Beavis,

We appreciate the mutton chops you showed in writing your letter. We stand by the original article, which is meaty and subject to editorial pullover. We can knit agree with any of your criticisms.

—Eds

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Dear Editors,

I had a severe allergic reaction to the recent article “On Homeopathic Linguistics”. I think I may be hypersensitive to bullsh—, uh, baloney.

Skitter Hale
Helmsman, Department of Linguistics and
Defense Against the Dork Arts
Hogwash School of Whooshcraft and Wizdomry

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Dear Skeeter,

We asked author Trent Slater for his opinion on your condition, and he says your reaction means you are “detoxing”. So, good for you!

—Eds.

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Dearest Editors,

As one of the most successful solvers of SpecGram puzzles over the last few years, I want to thank you for reinstating the bestowal of glory upon those of us who earn it. Given your vast readership, it stands to reason that hundreds if not thousands of people attempt each issue’s bedeviling quizzes, and those few of us who rise about the masses to complete these arduous tasks successfully feel that the masses owe us a debt of praise in recognition of our accomplishment (and more importantly, of their own abject failure).

Thank you for doing your part to acknowledge greatness!

Humbly yours,
Anonymous

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Dear Ever and Anon,

Game recognizes game. Respect!

—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.

Sumer Is Icumen In: Setting the Agenda, Broadening the AppealMr M E Middle-English
Bʀoᴋɛɴ Nɛws Nɛᴛwoʀᴋ
SpecGram Vol CXCIV, No 1 Contents