SpecGram Puzzles and Games. Collected all in one place for your brain-teasing pleasure, below is a list of the currently available linguistically themed puzzles and games that have appeared over the years in SpecGram and related publications. Puzzles? Contents Acrostics | Anagrams | Choose Your Own Career | Crosswords | Cryptic Crosswords | Cryptograms | Domino Puzzles | Drop Quotes | EtymGeo™ | Fieldwork Puzzles | FonoFutoshiki | FonoNurikabe | HanjieLinguru | HashiWordakero | HitoriGuistiku | HomonimoKakuro | Interactive Fiction | IPA Code Puzzles | IPAlindromes | Language Identification | Latin Squares | LingDoku | Ling-Ken | L’Ishing | Logic Puzzles | Mad Libitum Games | Magic Squares | Masyu Ortograpiu ... [ more ]
The “Panama Guzzler” Anagram Puzzle.Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Washington D.C.. You may or may not have noticed something a bit off in the article earlier in this issue by Barb Tyd-Laika and Tessie Chopp Durnford, entitled “The Nasal Tone: An Honest Tale”. If you did, then either you are very sensitive to nuanced subtleties of language, or you are just really paranoid.1 If not, you obviously have all the finesse of a rock thrown through a plate glass window. In any event, the text is indeed special. It is what I like to call a “Panama Guzzler” Anagram Puzzle. Now, even if you are a little dim, you may have noticed that panama guzzler is an anagram of ... [ more ]
How Do I Love Thee?, Let Me Draw a Tree Diagram.Alex Savoy.[Author’s Note: Quite in fitting with the approach of Valentine’s Day, I submit this love poem, which, surprisingly, actually worked—though alas I am no longer dating said person anymore, which is why I am bitterly prostituting this former declaration of love, which I have suitably altered for the occasion.] How do I love thee? Let me draw a tree diagram— I was maundering, lonely as a bilabial trill, When I first heard your voice—(some breathy strange tongue), I was love-struck at once—(after all, I was young), How rounded your mouth, And iotally perfect your skin. Your eyes are like geminates, plosive and clear, ... [ more ]
Speculative Grammarian is proud to present yet another installment of indeterminate regularity in the Linguistic Anthropologic Monograph Endowment’s Bizarre Grammars of the World Series. The Hidden Language of Public Seduction. An Anthropological Linguistic Study of Spanyol0.Bizarre Grammars of the World, Vol. 60, Introduction. Earlier this year, in preparation for fieldwork in Mozambique, Chad, and Japan, I decided to review some Spanish-language pedagogical audio materials (Cash 2007). As I was listening intently and re-acquainting myself with this beautiful language, I was quite surprised to hear many seemingly innocuous phrases presented with a tone of voice that ... [ more ]
Draw Me a Linguist.Aster E. O’Gnosis and Margo Llicso. Much has been made recently in certain circles of the stereotypical views children have of scientists, and how those views are changed after paying a visit to CERN—all reflected in the drawings of the children. (Drollette, 2010) The cliché says that children are our future, and the humanizing effect of the CERN visit on children’s perceptions may eventually be parlayed into an increase in the number of young people who choose to pursue science as a profession, which of course results in better enrollment in college courses, and thus more funding for science departments. We figured linguistics could probably use some of that action, too. ... [ more ]
On the Proto-Indo-European Origin of ‘Twerk’.Mark Butcher & Mark Candlestick-Maker, Department of PIE Studies, Pecan University. A common question asked of linguists these days, to our collective dismay, is “What is the etymology of ‘twerk’?”1 Twerking is a dance craze with respectable origins in the New Orleans bounce music scene,2 but it has enraged millions in recent years for reasons we would rather avoid writing about. Several authors have speculated that the term is a clipping of ‘footwork’ or a portmanteau of ‘twist’ and ‘jerk’3 (foolish speculation, we know). We will make the case that the word is of ... [ more ]
A Classical Vignette. I was recently studying in Harvard’s special collections library, poring over books by mid-eighteenth century philosophers of language, when I came across a small slip of very yellow paper inserted between the pages of an essay by Johann Peter Suessmilch (appropriately titled “Versuch eines Beweises, dass der Ursprung der menschlichen Sprache nicht vom Menschen, sondern allein vom Schoepfer erhalten habe”). This small slip of very yellow paper contained a few lines of what appeared to be some variant of Hebrew writing. After some further observation, I noted that the paper was quite thick, and of a texture unlike most of our papers today. When I accidentally spilled some of my tea on it, I was ... [ more ]
English is the Original Language. Modern linguistics has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what many of the ancients, especially Plato, already had surmised: language is inherent in the human from before birth, and the so-called “learning of language” is actually the application of the principles of Universal Grammar (UG) to the limited and faulty performance data of adult speakers in such a way as to make sense of the data. A natural question now arises. What if the child is not exposed to any data? Since UG is inherent, will the child develop language anyway, and if so, which language? My colleagues and I at Stammbaum University became interested in these questions several years ago. Because of the current ... [ more ]
Labyrinths & Linguists.by Craig Kopris. While perusing the wax cylinder recordings stored at one of the major archives on the eastern seaboard (which will be left unnamed to protect the reputations of all concerned), I ran across a particular cylinder that caught my attention. Sticking out of one end was the charred remains of a wick. Curious as to why someone would attempt to destroy such a precious object (assuming, of course, that they hadn’t simply mistaken it for a defective candle), I searched the online catalog for more information. Nothing was to be found electronically, so I turned to the old card catalog. I was about to give up hope after searching without success, when I found hidden under the cards a slip ... [ more ]
A Love/Hate Relationship: Pesky Antonyms.Jessie Sams, Stephen F. Austin State University. When students get to college, the majority of them have never thought about antonyms as being anything more than “opposites.” So big is the opposite of small, just like buyer is the opposite of seller. Then, all of a sudden, students are forced into a linguistics course with a professor who tells them that they have to learn to differentiate among different types of antonyms. Student’s minds are nearly exploding with information as they have to learn definitions of terms like ‘converse’ and ‘gradable’ and ‘complementary’ in the world of ... [ more ]
Letters to the Editor.Dear Sirs Drear Sores: What in the ever-loving name of the Elder Ones and all their minions are you doing in publishing? I received my proof prints of “A Theoretical Semantic, Minimalist Analysis of American Corporatese,” scheduled for publication in your November journal, and demand an explanation, several apologies, your heads, and a refund of the $4500 publication fee you charged my university that they then deducted from my next three paychecks with a threatening letter not to do that again. First, since when did your journal impose a strict word limit? Have you even looked at the overflowing truckloads of rotten tripe your journal has pumped out in the past? I note that real ... [ more ]
A Short History of American Linguistics*.Tim Pulju.Reprinted, with permission, from Historiographia Linguistica, XVIII:1.221-246 (1991), with minor updates and a new afterword by the author. *It has occurred to the Editor of this Journal [Historiographia Linguistica] that the History of Linguistics as an academic subject has sufficiently progressed during the past fifteen or more years to allow for this spoof to be printed in HL without being mistaken for proper scholarship. Indeed, after all the drudgery of historical research and the seriousness of reflection on matters of methodology and philosophical argument, we may be permitted to enjoy some lighter moments in our day-to-day ... [ more ]
SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]
Personal Ads for Linguists—including linguists of every kind seeking romance, academic partnerships, and more—all with that special SpecGram twist. N.B.: Information in personal ads is provided by the submitters. The editors and publishers of Speculative Grammarian are not responsible for their content, including, but not limited to, typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, bad judgment, factual errors, bald-faced lies, or lapses in national security ... [ more ]
Cryptolinguistic Puzzle 2.Mary Shapiro, Truman State University. Like other cryptic crosswords, the clues in this puzzle are not straightforward. Unlike most, however, this one focuses mainly on languages and linguistics. For instance, the clue for Zapotec might be “Oto-Manguean variety alters pez coat” (anagram of pez coat), or “Indigenous Mexican language to destroy overtime prior to European Commission” (ZAP + O.T. + E.C.), or “a nice top, a zany blouse conceals retro Oaxacan language” (niCE TOP, A Zany), or many other combinations of puns, anagrams, or typographic quirks. Punctuation in clues is often misleading. Each clue contains both a definition (of ... [ more ]
Virtual NLP Dice.The SpecGram Überlinguistaffen. As many successful practitioners of Natural Language Processing know, the surest path to success is to come up with some complicated-looking equation and then rest on your mathematical laurels for the rest of your career—because “Math is hard, and hard things are for smart people, and smart people are just better. QED.” Or so we learned from the original ad for NLP Dice: “Local Linguist Mom Discovers One Weird Trick for Deriving NLP Equations!—Computational Linguists Hate Her!” (SpecGram CLXIX.1, 2014). It turns out that computational linguists hated her even more than anyone could have ever ... [ more ]
A SpecGram Festivus, Not Necessarily for the Rest of Us.Skip Tacular, SpecGram Minister of Intern(al) Affairs. As we put to bed this, the final issue of SpecGram for the year 2012, it’s hard not to wonder whether it will in fact be the last issue of SpecGram ever. I don’t know whether or not the Linguistic Doomsday truly is coming—but just in case, the editorial board has collectively skipped town, to hunker down in their cold-war-era bunkers and fallout shelters, leaving me in charge—all the responsibility, none of the power, as usual. ... A drawing of a dapper Krampus from a celebration of Indogermanischen Urlaub in the 1870s, thought ... [ more ]
Minimalism for Mimes.by Watta Puntshlein. As Clyde looked up and noticed the confused and, in a few cases, hostile expressions with which his Minimalism paper was greeted ... [ more ]
The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective. Are you in a world of linguistic hurt? The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective (SLAC) will offer you empirical, empathic, emphatic advice you can use!* Remember, if you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, then you don’t need advice! So, if you need advice, trust us—and cut yourself some SLAC! ... Dear SLAC, What’s the plural of focus and how do you pronounce it? I’ve seen it spelled <foci> but do you pronounce that /foʊkaɪ/ or /foʊsaɪ/ ? Or is it something else entirely? Focuses? Focora? Focopodes? Please offer me your insights on pluralization so I can ... [ more ]
Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics.by Trey Jones. As a service to our young and impressionable readers who are considering pursuing a career in linguistics, Speculative Grammarian is pleased to provide the following Gedankenexperiment to help you understand the possibilities and consequences of doing so. For our old and bitter readers who are too far along in their careers to have any real hope of changing the eventual outcome, we provide the following as a cruel reminder of what might have been. Let the adventure begin ... [ more ]
