The Library of Never-Written Books, Part I—Beebly O’Gnost & Libby R. Arian SpecGram Vol CXCV, No 1 Contents The Solution to Poor Pedantry is... More, Better Pedantry—Bück Würm, E. G. Ghed, and Petra Gogue

How to Write a Speculative Grammarian Article*

The Editors

We get asked a lot of questions here at SpecGram headquarters. “Can you diagram this sentence for me?”1 “Do English modals have past forms spelled with consonants that are not etymologically supported?”2 “Did the SpecGram movie win any awards at a major film festival, and, if so, did Slappy Smith get the nod for his amazing portrayal of David J. Peterson?”3 We also get a lot of questions that would be better directed to various emergency response teams, possibly due to fat-finger dialing mistakes.4

By far the most common question we get is “How do I write for SpecGram?” For years, our editors have given out answers that are technically correct but pragmatically useless, such as suggesting nearby preschool classrooms that teach you the shapes of the letters. We’ve also given out plenty of irrelevant advice on what font size you should use5 and a lot of bad advice about how to cook a turkey.6

But you’re probably more interested in advice on how to write a good piece for SpecGram.7

The first step is to pick a subject, or if you’re ultimately going to write a transitive sentence, an agent.8 Given the subject matter of this illustrious ill and lusty illustrated journal, it would be wise to go with a topic that is at least linguistics-adjacent, such as “The system of Welsh possessive forms” or “Ferdinand de Saussure’s moustache wax”. If all else fails, you can try to work your way toward linguistics from a normal subject, such as “Director Robert Zemeckis”.9

Congratulations—you’re halfway to finishing your first sentence for SpecGram! Now it’s just a matter of picking an appropriate predicate,10 such as “is known to produce contact mutations” or... actually, that works with all of the above subjects.11

Now you’ve got your first sentence, containing a thesis statement that may very well not be true. Just stick with it no matter what, like a less-reputable news channel or a very reputable linguistics department.12 Do you want to assert that Cadwgan ap Bleddyn managed to repel an attack when William II paused to work out the right mutation to say “This is my land” in Welsh? Nobody has evidence to disprove you!13

Finally, we come to the issue of footnotes. As our readers are well aware, SpecGram authors often include a plethora of footnotes. The two main purposes of footnotes in our august journal are to introduce further erudition that might be misconstrued as prolixity in the context of the main thesis of the article and to inject brief interludes of levity amongst the impeccable doctiloquence that constitutes our signature SpecGram voice. Duty-bound to present these pearls of wisdom to our soon-to-be-more learned readership, we nevertheless endeavour not to bespoil the carefully woven tapestry that is our text style. A simple, unobtrusive superscript number† serves to remind the reader that, while still in the afterglow of awestruck enlightenment that inevitably accompanies finishing a SpecGram masterpiece, they can look forward to the advent of additional epiphanies upon subsequent re-reading(s).

See how dry that last paragraph was?14 Here are all the footnotes that would have gone in it, helpfully collected into one mega-footnote.15

So why not give it a try and send your best article to us?‡ While you’re at it, cc a copy to Linguistic Inquiry and see which one earns you more respect from your peers!16


* It appears that there has been a conspiracy among several editors and editorial interns to suppress this article for several years. It is unclear whether this suppression was solely a SpecGram-internal affair—perhaps driven by a desire to discourage any increase in submissions of quality articles and hence any concomitant increase in work for the editorial staff—or a more wide-ranging scheme—perhaps masterminded by a shadowy cabal or two—to undermine SpecGram by decreasing submissions. —The Meta Editors

1 Can? Yes. Will? No.

2 “Can”, yes. “Will”, no.

3 Cannes, yes. Will, No.

4 As all Americans know thanks to our catchy advertising jingle, you can get connected to a SpecGram editor 24/7 by dialing 9–1–4.

5 It doesn’t matter. Thanks to a lucrative kickback deal made years ago with a person who prefers to remain anonymous (we’ll call him “Tim Apple”), our editors will automatically alter your font and margin sizes to be legible on an iPhone but not on an iPhone SE.

6 One of our many phone numbers is just a single digit off from the Butterball hotline. We apologize to any celiacs who may have misunderstood when we used the word “agglutination”.

7 We have no clue. If you figure it out, please let our current writers know.

8 Pop quiz for the ambitious writer-to-be: What could you start with instead if you got your doctorate in Pamplona?

9 Who probably knows a thing or two about agents.

10 Another common question is whether you need to be an expert in predicate calculus to write a good predicate. Of course not! Why, many a fine sentence can be constructed with nothing more advanced than predicate trigonometry. But we’re going off on a tangent...

11 Why the dickens would anyone buy their wax at the Old Curie-osity Shop?

12 The kind that favors generativism over Saussurean structuralism, probably because they can’t grow a cool ‘stache.

13 At least not without a time-travelling DeLorean.

† In order to preserve the sanctity of the simple, unobtrusive superscript numbers, our commentary uses the more traditional non-numerical footnote symbols. —The Meta Editors

14 Almost as dry as our Thanksgiving turkey.

15 Other collective nouns include “exaltation” and “murder”, depending on their content. The observant reader will not fail to notice that we failed to publish in August. Surveys, subscription numbers, and the flood of angry correspondence indicate that our readers prefer not to be referred to with porcine nouns. All we can say about this paragraph is “Woof!” Bonus point if you saw that joke looming. Even our critics contend that SpecGram articles are full of awe, etymologically speaking.

‡ Well, not now. Alas, it is too late. —The Meta Editors

16 You know, those people you meet while getting undrinkable coffee in that filthy break room. Maybe a porcine noun’s appropriate after all...

The Library of Never-Written Books, Part I—Beebly O’Gnost & Libby R. Arian
The Solution to Poor Pedantry is... More, Better Pedantry—Bück Würm, E. G. Ghed, and Petra Gogue
SpecGram Vol CXCV, No 1 Contents