Note: for this letters installment, we’ve limited letters to replies to various poems. That should keep the discussion polite and high-minded, right? —Eds.

Sirs,

Your ‘linguimerick’ (what’s that?) from Alfie and Ada (your grandfather’s parents?) is only slightly less metrically, lyrically and poetically offensive than it is inaccurate both historico-linguistically and linguistico-historically. Not only was there no such thing as the ‘Latin alphabet’ (instead, various alphabets emerged at different points in the lengthy evolution of the set of lects umbrella-termed ‘Latin’) but crucially, critically and crepuscularly, the classical Latin alphabet had 23 letters, not 26.

In any case, most users of Latin were illiterate. Not unlike yourselves.

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Dear Romulus and Remus,

26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 (pause for sip of wine), 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...

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Dear Zirz,

Consider this:

A: What is that pile of bricks for on the road over there?

B: It’s to put the sign on so everyone can see it.

A: So what’s the sign for?

B: Well, as you can see, it reads “Beware: Pile of Bricks”.

You will, I feel sure, perceive the circularity of this joke. Would that you had applied this perception to your limerick in which the insomniac writer remainz awake pondering the very nature of the insomnia. Were the writer zimply to ztop thinking about the zzzz-ing, they would, ipso facto, zettle to zlumber.

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Dear Silver Jam Juice,

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!

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Dear Eds,

As an ‘A fan’ of your journal, I tend to open each issue with a profound sense of ‘Hi, fun!’. However, being a hyphen, I thought your recent ‘High Fun’ poem on the hyphen was hyped fun at best.

How about a full-stop?

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Dear Who-Are-You?

Gotta dash!

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Eds,

You extol and applaud, sir, apocope

But not apheresis and syncope!

How ’bout that? Not gonna lie:

I ’spect a reply

T’arrive soon ’n’ begin like this: “Please ’scuse me ...”

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Dear Jon-fun,

___-ate-_______-ic _______ Therefore, ______ notwithstanding _____.^*

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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.

	A Letter from Editor Emeritus Tim Pulju
	Linguimericks—Book १०३
	SpecGram Vol CXCV, No 1 Contents