Our readers should be pleased to learn that included with the current issue of Speculative Grammarian is an extra-special bonus; namely, the final, only partially complete issue of that much-lamented monument of linguistic scholarship, Langue du Monde. As is well known, LdM's offices were destroyed in a mysterious fire in late 1991 which investigators on the scene concluded could only have resulted from arson. LdM's managing editors, Mssrs Robert C. Norris and Keith W. Slater, who prudently went into Salman Rushdie-like hiding after receiving several death threats at that same time, have now resurfaced and come to join us here on the staff of SpecGram. Although by the terms of their deal with their enemies, they have agreed not to sponsor any more investigative reporting of the type which got them into trouble in the first place, this does not mean that if they managed to save something already written but not yet published, that the said something could not be published.

[Strange Interlude] For legal purposes, I wish to emphasize that this paragraph has nothing to do with the ones preceding and following it. I think readers of the final issue of LdM will be very interested in the article on page 4 of that journal. I think that if sinister governmental forces were to object to anything published in a linguistic journal, it would probably be an article like that one. [End of Strange Interlude]

Any linguistic journal would be fortunate to have two such estimable gentlemen as Norris and Slater join its staff. We at SpecGram are doubly blessed because they brought with them the first five pages of the last issue of LdM, which were not destroyed in the fire because Mr. Slater had taken them home to check for typos. (Our proofreader says Keith missed a few, but it's too late to fix them now.)

The upshot of all this is that not only do you have the usual brilliantly enlightening and stimulating issue of Speculative Grammarian available to you, but you also get the collector's edition final issue of Langue du Monde. Truly an embarrassment of riches. Don't tell your friends and neighbors; they'll only be jealous.

	Basic Ithacan--Trey Jones
	SpecGram Vol CXLVII, No 1 Contents