In an era of tweets and AI summaries, the news that Speculative Grammarian will be ceasing publication by the end of 2025 should, perhaps, come as no surprise.1 Readers accustomed to postings of no more than 280 characters, or to AI that boils everything down to a few sentences, can have little interest in reading articles that include, in some cases, hundreds of words arranged in several paragraphs.2 Perhaps, too, the editorial board was influenced by an article published some twenty years ago in this very journal, which argued that as papers go, the shorter, the better. Taking this argument to its logical (though not necessarily unimpeachable) conclusion, the editors may have decided that the best possible article is one with a length of zero; i.e., no article at all.3
|
If that was indeed their reasoning, then the editors are to be commended for their ongoing commitment to making SpecGram the best that it can be. Yet there might be some small residue of readers, the sort who take pleasure working through long 19th-century novels like The Brothers Karamazov and Barchester Towers,4 who will miss SpecGram. In an attempt to comfort such readers, let me point out that, over its long, storied, and sometimes disputed history,5 SpecGram has more than once ceased publication, only to return from the dead in unexpected but often marvelous ways. Indeed, after I myself, feeling the weight of old age and decrepitude, had allowed the journal to lapse into nothingness at the end of the 20th century, it was revived in 2004 by Trey Jones,6 Editor Optimus Maximus, who was then in the full flush of youth and vigor. It was Trey who brought SpecGram into the internet age and has directed the journal’s fortunes during one of its most halcyon periods.7 He has, of course, had the able assistance of a diverse cast of editors, contributors, and even (dare we admit it) hard-
But now Trey is not so young as he used to be, and perhaps he feels decrepitude creeping up on him, hiding in the shadows whenever he whirls around to try to get a glimpse of it, but drawing ever closer when he’s not looking. Or maybe he’s just sick of doing so much work for so little pay.10 Anyway, whatever the reason
Lastly, I should point out that the year isn’t over yet, meaning that many brand-
1 See the announcement on the front page of the website. I was surprised, but nobody tells me anything. Or maybe they told me, but I just forgot.
2 Sometimes more. In cases like that, I’m not sure that even the original authors read the whole thing.
3 This article might be an early example of the application of the “nothing is better” theory. (I should also note that some members of the editorial board suggested, a little unkindly in my opinion, that the letter from the editor which you’re now reading could have used the same sort of optimizing. They may have been right, but it’s too late now.)
4 Not Les Misérables. The unabridged version is something like 1500 pages long. Just go see the musical instead.
5 Details can be found in a variety of SpecGram letters from the editor, articles, and so on. I didn’t bother to look them all up
6 It’s in tribute to Trey, who loves footnotes, that I’ve put so many footnotes in the present document. Personally, I think that if something is important, you should put it in the main body of whatever you’re writing, and if it’s not important, you shouldn’t include it at all. Of course, that approach often leads to long, convoluted sentences and/or paragraphs, with numerous digressions (sometimes enclosed in parentheses (or even parentheses within parentheses)), which can be hard to follow, but at least with a written document (like this one), you can go back and re-read to make sense of things (though why you’d want to, at least in the present case, is beyond me). If you really want to be confused, you should try making sense of my class lectures.
7 Though not as prosperous, financially speaking, as the 1950’s, when the Department of Defense was throwing money at anyone they thought could build them a machine translator. We took the money, but we never did manage to build them a machine translator.
8 Not to mention that I don’t know most of them personally. I don’t get into the office as much as I used to.
9 Actually, I think that, given his age, Keith ought to be a Senior Editor. But I don’t understand the modern SpecGram system of titles any more than I understand the traditional British system of academic titles. In my day, we had one editor, a few associate editors, some editorial associates, and the occasional rampaging horde.
10 The Department of Defense is not as generous as it used to be. Plus, who needs linguists now that we’ve got Google Translate?
11 Not that anyone ever tells me anything.
12 Again, nobody ever tells me anything. Or maybe I should have been reading all those “important memos” that I’ve arranged to have routed directly to my spam folder.
13 They normally don’t let me read pre-
