The Real Etymology of Timothy.Eura U. Pertú Peninsular Institute of Etymology.[Note: More than twenty years ago (SpecGram CXLVII.3, to be exact) we published what now appears to have been a spurious etymology of Timothy, seemingly forced upon us by shadowy forces and/or powerful lobbies. We can’t for the life of us imagine who would do such a thing. Fortunately, this original, unbowdlerized version—presented here without fear of lost fingers—quite surprisingly turned up among our executive editors’ stockpile of Hanebisho toilet paper. The truth wants to be told —Eds.] It has long been observed that Timothy is a name of obscure ... [ more ]
The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGramMinistry of Propaganda. The SpecGram Archive Elves™ have undertaken a project to digitize and share a sheaf of early 20th century SpecGram propaganda posters, which were used during the Great Linguistic War and the Second Linguistic War to encourage linguists everywhere to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humor during those trying times. We provide the digitized posters here for you to enjoy, retrospect on, and share. Select a poster to see a higher quality image, and for links to share on social media, to email friends, and to view or download the highest quality version of the image. ... Read SpecGram Every Month! ... [ 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 ]
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 ]
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 ]
Do You Suffer the Embarrassment of Loose Vowel Syndrome?.Dr. Goodword. It is an affliction so embarrassing that no one wants to talk about it, yet it is spreading like Harry Potter books throughout the English-speaking world. The symptoms are slurred speech, confusion, misunderstood utterances. By now you’ve guessed it: I am writing about Loose Vowel Syndrome (LVS). LVS involves the loosening of unaccented vowels until they drop out of words completely! The origin of LVS is clearly Merry Old England, where Worcester has been worn down to Wooster, library is pronounced libr’y, and laboratory is laborat’ry (lab’ratory in the U.S.) How many young men have seen their naval ... [ more ]
Texan for Linguists.Katy Jo Parker, and, Truman ‘Tex’ Beauregard. This article is not about the descriptively interesting linguistic features of Texan dialects of English (such as incipient fixin’ singular they, modal stacking, second person plural y’all,ain’t and cain’t, bidness, coke for soda, etc.) nor is it about any of the interesting Spanish-related linguistic phenomena in Texas (such as “Spanglish” Chicano and Tejano English, code-switching, or Pachuco slang). Rather, this article is about the colorful language and evocative phrasing that makes Texan English a much-talked-about dialect, even (and especially) ... [ more ]
The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature. Welcome to Online Selections from The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, researched, compiled, and edited by the lexicographers, etymologists, and philologists of Speculative Grammarian. The editors of Speculative Grammarian are delighted to present selections of the fifty-volume lexicographic opus, The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, online for the first time ever. The Compleat Encyclopaedia is a one-of-a-kind resource, compiled ... [ 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 ]
PAID ADVERTISEMENT — http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress New from Panini Press! .Word Problems for Linguists ❦पा by Barbara Millicent Roberts, Ph.D. Department of Applied Mathematical Linguistics Handler University Published 2025. 194 pg. Linguists! You’ve spent years dissecting syntax trees, contemplating the very origin of language itself, and arguing about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the Voynich manuscript with clueless neckbeards online—safe in the knowledge that you’d never again have to do anything more mathematically complicated than figure out the tip on your dinner bill—and if you have tenure, you don’t even have to do ... [ more ]
Linguimericks, Book ६८. The Bar-Raising Principle There once was a field linguistic That loved not a single statistic. The field built a fence With definitions so dense Its contraction became its prime characteristic —Christian DiCanio, Young grad students I just can’t believe in; In my office I’m always a-grievin’: Though they’re smart in the head And leave nothing unread, When they speak they’re unable to even —Morris Swadesh III, There once was a linguistics journal, Whose staff’s views to the mainstream were foreign. “All You lot think you’re clever, Even art,” said some haverer, “But you’re only a glorified urinal.” ... [ more ]
Speculative Grammarian and SpecGram.com.Our Story. The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields. SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while ... [ more ]
Teaching Historical Linguistics: A Program of Much-Needed Reform.by Lea Kim Shopmont, Assistant Professor of Communication, Ancilla College, Indiana. Linguistics is a branch of the humanities that prides itself on its scientific character in much the same way as phrenology, astrology, and eugenics did. Perhaps the most pernicious branch of linguistics is historical linguistics, which, regardless of its protestations of studying the history of any language, in fact concerns itself for the most part with dead white male speakers of the ludicrously misnamed “Indo-European” family of languages—even by its own testimony, neither all Europeans nor all Indians speak these languages, and thus ... [ more ]
Falsehoods About Linguistics.Compiled by N. Correct, N. Accurate, and Aaron Nius. Inspired by Patrick McKenzie’s “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names” here is a list of ideas, thoughts, and assumptions about linguists and linguistics that come up from time to time, but none of which are necessarily true. Linguists know what a language is. Linguists know what a word is. Linguists know what linguistics is. Linguists can tell you the correct way of doing linguistics. Linguists can tell you the correct way of speaking a language. All linguists know multiple, if not many, languages. All linguists love languages. All linguists enjoy learning, and learning about, different languages. Knowing how to ... [ more ]
Challenging the Gendering of, Theoretical Constructs in Morphology.by Professor Parker Quinn-Sawyer. Observers stand united in bewilderment as to the blatantly gendered nature of basic theoretical constructs in current morphology. Centre stage and dominant in current conceptualisations of linguistic word-building stands, of course, the lexeme. A stark reminder of the self-absorption and egotism of the Male principle, the lexeme’s narcissism requires it to assume many names—lemma, word-form, formative—each of which is simply a restatement of the others, a bland, monostratal, endless self-redefinition designed entirely to motivate a dominant, feudal power play over ... [ more ]
The Linguistic Big Freeze.by John Tipler and Frank J. Barrow, Omega Point Open University. It is with some disappointment that we feel obligated to submit this article to the previously respectable Speculative Grammarian, which has now been demoted to the position of Purveyor of Meta-Tripe. We agree with most of Block’s (2010) explanation of the Linguistic Big Bang, but vigorously disagree with his contention of an impending Linguistic Big Crunch. We agree with most of Saygone’s (2010) tripe-related criticism of Block’s Linguistic Big Crunch, but vigorously disagree with his contention of an impending Linguistic Big Rip. Both of these theoretical models served linguophysicists in their ... [ more ]
ADVERTISEMENTS.WORLD’S LARGEST linguistic data collections now available for private purchase. We must liquidate our enormous stock of unpublished field notes for literally hundreds of languages. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to harvest the fruits of others’ labor. FIELD DATA CLEARING HOUSE ATTN: ARLENE. P.O. BOX 1991, BUTTE, MT. APPLIED WHORFISM Are you tired of those unannounced 3-week visits by your mother-in-law, but unable to think of a legal way to prevent them? Do you wish your boss would shut up already about the project that’s a little overdue? The Applied Whorfism Center has your answer. Just write for information about sponsoring the offending person in our excellent programs ... [ more ]
On the Go ~ Went Alternation.A Contribution (?) to the Generative Phonology of English*.Bernard Comrie, University of Cambridge. Most theories of phonology (morphophonology, morphology) allow for suppletion, whereby the allomorphs of a morpheme are completely unrelated phonetically. In discussing English phonology, one example of suppletion that is frequently cited is go [gōw] ~ went [went]. Within generative phonology (taken here essentially in the sense of Chomsky & Halle (1968)), one attempts to set up a single underlying representation for all allomorphs of a morpheme. The fact (if it is a fact) that suppletion exists, i.e. that certain allomorphs of a single morpheme ... [ more ]
Re: Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics.A Letter to the Editor. The Editor, SpecGaram1 Sir,2 Readers should note that the article—Choose Your Own Career in Linguistics in SpecGram CL.α—despite appearances—is not a game, or a mere interactive text adventure! It is a highly sophisticated applied expert system, diligent use of which will enable the user to simulate the actualities at very little personal cost but time. Yet experiencing all of its tracks—albeit virtually rather than in actuality, be it said—will provide the participant with a wonderful, exhilarating experience that may ... [ more ]
