Speculative Grammarian’s Under-
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A statistician, a sports fanatic, and a linguist are watching a college basketball game in a bar in March. As the game ends, the statistician and the sports fan pump their fists in victory. The sports fan asks the linguist, “How do you win the March Madness pool every year when you’re so bad at predicting who will win each game?” The linguist wiped her hand on her orange apron and said, “Nuncle Price, as he was nicknamed, gave me the ammunition to turn this into a whole nother ball game and notch the overall win every year. He taught me the secrets of rebracketing.”
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Three men walk into a bar. The first one says something in Turkish. The bartender pulls a perfect pint of beer and serves him. The second one says something in Japanese, and again the bartender serves up a beer that comes up so close to the top of the pint glass that the man has to bend down to drink it. The third person says in English, “I’ll have a beer like those two.” The bartender hands over a pint glass that is nearly full of foam, with just the slightest bit of liquid at the bottom. The customer asks her, “Why did you give me such a terrible pour?” She responds, “Ordering in English? It’s head-
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A man goes into a pub, says “A beer and a cider please.”
The barman says, “You know, you’ve just used the indefinite article to form singulatives from mass nouns.”
Another man comes in, says “Three beers please.”
The barman says, “You’ve just pluralised a singulative, and in doing so, you’ve dropped the indefinite article you used to form the singulative in the first place. And the cool bit is, it’s totally productive! See that farmer over there? He’s got a herd of over a hundred beeves.”
And the customers say, “You know all this amazing stuff! How come you’re working in a pub?”
“Have you tried getting a job with a degree in linguistics?”
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Three students walk into a university bar in Toronto. The first student complains that she was having network issues until she realized that her software was messing up packet headers. The bartender listens patiently, then pushes over a beer, saying, “IP, eh?”. The second student talks about difficulties she’s having understanding the finer points of copyright law. The bartender gives her a beer and says understandingly, “IP, eh?”. The third student looks depressed, so the bartender asks him about his story. He says, “I’m studying linguistics...” and pauses. The bartender asks, “Would you like a pilsner?” The student says, “Yes indeed, and thanks for not making a phonetics joke! Anyway, I’m trying to understand the structure of a particular sentence, and I can’t figure out where to put the auxiliary verb.” The bartender says, “IP, eh!”
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A regular walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “The usual?” He responds, “No, I want to try a different drink. I’ll have the cocktail of the day.” She makes one for him, and he sits down to drink it. Twenty minutes, he returns, upset. “What’s in cocktail of day? You gave me drink, and now I talk like I’m foreigner.” She taps the sign on the wall that says Not Responsible For Lost Articles.
...
A little later, another man walks into the bar and asks the bartender if she’s seen his wife. The bartender asks, “What’s her name?” The man responds, “Ann.” She taps the sign again.
...
Ten minutes later, the lights flash brightly. A man at a table yells furiously, “My masterpiece! I was writing a journal piece on polysemy, and the power surge destroyed my work!” A woman sitting at the bar says to the bartender, “That sign sure pays for itself.”
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Some Esperantaj pronouns walk into a drinkejo.
Pronoun 1: Let’s have the best vin in the house!
Pronoun 2: Ĝi, it’s expensive; only if you’re paying.
Pronoun 3: Don’t be so min. You’re always taking the ŝin off the evening.
Pronoun 2: Don’t be so accusative: this is mi we’re talking about. Anyway, I can’t drink much, I have to leave ili.
Pronoun 1: You’re always leaving ilia than us. It’s ŝia rudeness. Anyone would think that sending the evening with us is some kind of via dolorosa.
Pronoun 2: You’re such a lia; I only leave early occasionally. Anyway, you two live niaby.
Pronouns 1 and 3: There’s no hope for you! And no vin por vi either.
Pronouns 1 and 3 ĝia at Pronoun 2 who goes off oni’s way.
Suddenly, Zamenhof invents another language specifically for pronoun peace and everything is instantly okay.
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Two linguists save up all week so they can enjoy some $3 beers at the local bar. When they get there, there are two men wearing Armani suits and Rolex watches. One of them orders a top-
The second person orders an expensive scotch and says, “I used to be a computer scientist using a neural network for automated image recognition. One day, I fed it historical options pricing data instead. I made $3 million last month alone!”
As the two rich men walk away with their drinks, one linguist says to the other, “Can you believe those guys?” The other responds, “Yeah, what a waste! With trivial code modifications they could have pointed their software at corpus data and become computational linguists like us!”
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The German second person singular pronoun walks into a restaurant and rudely asks the maitre d’, “Can I sit over there by the window?” The maitre d’ replies, “Please du, dir deiner.” As he walks away the maitre d’ whispers under his breath, “What a dich.”
A German first person singular pronoun who is a trusted but lowly employee of the local coal mine accompanies the mine owner’s daughter to an expensive restaurant. On entering the restaurant, the maitre d’ addresses himself to the employee saying “A table for two, sir?”. Embarrassed that it should be suggested that he eat with the mine owner’s daughter, the pronoun replies, “Sie ihr, ich bin kein deiner; ich mir meiner.”
The German pronouns er and sie go to a restaurant for a business lunch. The waiter seats them in a secluded corner and says to er, “Would you like a rose for the lady?” Sie replies, “No thank you. We’re both singular and neither of us are dative.”
A group of German second person plural pronouns go into a restaurant. The waiter asks them, “Where would you like to sit?” Pointing at the nearest table, they reply in unison, “Ihr.”
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A bunch of linguists are hanging out at the pub after work. One of their own walks in, and the department chair says, “Congratulations to our newly tenured professor! Everybody, raise your glass!” So they all say, “/juːɹ ɡlɛs/.”
Later on in the evening, some of the linguists are thinking about drifting off but the department chair persuades them to stay with the stirring words “Let’s make it a last round!” So they all say “[ʏt ə lœst].”
It’s even later, maybe two in the morning, and a great time has been had by all. Far from wanting to head home to their partners and kids, there’s a general consensus that this is the best night ever. Indeed, the department chair says, “This is a great night. Let’s make it last as long as we can.” So everyone says, “[ɪːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːt laːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːːst].” Then they all inhale deeply.
It’s nearly dawn now; the sun is peeking over the horizon. And, as the day dawns, the temperature rises
Jack’s feeling ashamed and wants to apologise. A moment arises and he starts to say something, but Jerry, a morphophonologist from Arkansas, interrupts. The department chair snaps back, “Give him voice.” So everyone says, “[ɦɪm].”
They’re all back at work now, hunched over their linguisticky desks in the open plan office. Sam, a historiographer of linguistics from Denver, is peering annoyingly over the shoulder of new-
Sam doesn’t get it and says something obviously untrue about Sid. There’s a moment of stunned silence before the department chair steps in and says, “Do you think you can retract that?” And everyone says, “[ða̠t].”
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* Apologies in advance: those presented here are more-