Most Popular Pages—Today

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1. Ministry of Propaganda (47 visits)

The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGram Ministry 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 ]


2. Archives (38 visits)

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 ]


3. Monoglot Derivatives—Polly and Paul E. Glōttidēs (31 visits)

Monoglot Derivatives. Polly and Paul E. Glōttidēs, X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies. As new varieties of multilingualism continue to arise, simplistic terms such as polyglot and hyperglot cannot be expected to represent the full diversity of human linguistic competence. Unfortunately, English vocabulary (unlike Eskimo vocabulary), hasn’t even made a pretense of keeping up. Each and every day a new form of super-duper-multilingualism arises, and yet English-speaking linguists have just the one term to describe it. As a public service, we at SpecGram are pleased to offer a small sampling of terms, which may serve to describe some of ... [ more ]


4. Mix & Match §—Max & Mitch Ninelette (30 visits)

Mix & Match §. by Max & Mitch Ninelette. The goal of this Mix & Match puzzle is to reconstitute a set of nine 9-letter words that have each had two trigrams removed. Below are two separate puzzles. Each includes a table to fill out and a set of trigrams with which to fill it up. Using each trigram once, fill the blanks in the table to form various nine-letter words. When you are done, three additional words will be revealed in the vertical direction for each puzzle. If you think you’ve figured out all the answers—that’s 24 nine-letter words!—submit your solution to the editors of SpecGram by September 15, 2016, and you could win a prize.* Solutions ... [ more ]


5. /nuz baɪts/ (29 visits)

/ nuz baɪts /. Not a wire news service but still more reliable than most newspapers. Economists Rebuked for Doing Linguistics Even More Poorly Than Linguists. In June a pair of economists released a study showing that women in societies that speak a gendered language tend to work less and take on more traditional gender roles. Since that time they have discovered other surprising links between noun classes and economics. In Germany, girls have lower rates of participation in the workforce than women, leading researchers to conclude that “neuter” is even farther down the gender hierarchy than “feminine”. And in languages that make an animacy distinction, people earn more than ... [ more ]


6. About Us (29 visits)

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 ] Podcast!


7. Linguistic Diversity and the Dream of the Universal Language—Chris Nsiwander-Sic (29 visits)

Linguistic Diversity and the Dream of the Universal Language. by Chris Nsiwander-Sic. Idealists have long dreamed of the many benefits that might be obtained for humanity through the establishment of a universal language spoken by all humans. For example, undergraduates in U.S. universities’ science departments might finally be able to understand their TAs. On the other hand, devotees of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and variants thereof would argue, sometimes by snowball ambuscade if necessary, that the establishment of a universal common language would impoverish humanity by destroying the valuable diversity of human culture and human thought. How might this terrible paradox be resolved? A clue may be found in a ... [ more ]


8. X Marks the Spot—Filling the Empty Quadrant—Yùron Yurōn (28 visits)

X Marks the Spot, Filling the Empty Quadrant. Yùron Yurōn, Yucatán Yuniversity. In his book, Pasteur’s Quadrant, Donald Stokes lays out a two-dimensional continuum for scientific research. The two axes can be characterized as relevance for immediate application and relevance for the advancement of knowledge. Basic research, like that done by Niels Bohr, focuses on the advancement of knowledge. Applied research, such as Thomas Edison’s work, focuses on relevance for immediate applications. Louis Pasteur is lauded by Stokes for considering both purposes at once. It makes for a lovely diagram. ... However, there is that unsightly empty quadrant, marked here with an X. ... [ more ]


9. Draw Me a Linguist—Aster E. O’Gnosis and Margo Llicso (27 visits)

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 ]


10. The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature (27 visits)

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 ]


11. Sharper Than the Serpent’s Tooth—A Letter from Associate Editor Pete Bleackley (27 visits)

Sharper Than the Serpent’s Tooth1. A Letter from Associate Editor Pete Bleackley. At Speculative Grammarian, we make no secret of the fact that various members of the Editorial Team have been known to dip their toes into the waters of Computational Linguistics, and have even been known to receive payment for doing so. What is less well known is that disagreements occasionally arise between us about which programming language to use for the purpose. While the more—shall we say “experienced”?2—computational linguists amongst us favour Perl,3 those with a more modern4 outlook advocate the use of Python.5 Python, of ... [ more ]


12. They Don’t Have a Word for It—Book Announcement from Psammeticus Press (27 visits)

Psammeticus Press, www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, They Don’t Have a Word for It, by Vickigail Saraswathi, Published 2009. Paperback, xxi + 188 pages. Price: $16.95 With the inexplicable success of pseudo-lexicons such as Howard Rheingold’s 2000 They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases, C. J. Moore’s 2004 In Other Words: A Language Lover’s Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World, and Adam Jacot de Boinod’s 2005 The Meaning of Tingo: And Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World, a native speaker of English could get the sinking feeling that English lacks the basic expressiveness needed to ... [ more ] Podcast!


13. JLSSCNC—On The Indexico-Relational Inductivity Hypothesis—Ed Goff (27 visits)

On the indexico-relational inductivity hypothesis of proto-flectional meta-syntagm residuals in the discourse-evaluative elicitation of interactionally non-null quasi-specifiability criteria for quantificational irreducibility quotients in satisficing algorithms for preliminary displacement reduction of grammatological abductive derivational extrapolation heuristics factors considerations: A re-evaluation.. Ed Goff, The indexico-relational inductivity hypothesis, for short, as its name clearly implies, predicts a correlational intermediative indeterminate continuation dynamic discoverable empirico-intuitively by “process recategorization” heuristics inherently persistent ... [ more ]


14. Letters to the Editor (CLXXXIX.2) (26 visits)

Letters to the Editor. Dear Editors, I see that you’re still blatantly s for biased interest groups as your recent article completely failed to acknowledge the contributions of currency-named Americans such as the great Vin¢ Price, ℳ Twain, ₭ Thorne, William J. Lan֏ ₾ Metcalf, ₣ Lloyd Wright, R Paul, ₥dred Pierce, and ƒce Nightingale. I’ve got a ¥ to cancel my subscription and read a ﷼ news source instead. To be ₣ you’ve got ฿ in the belfry. Sincerely, Mike d. PS: Don’t forget that we ₩ this election, by a lot! ... Dear J. C. Penney, Complaints like yours are a dime a dozen! You can go £ sand ... [ more ]


15. JLSSCNC—Publication Information (26 visits)

Publication Information. World of Language is published quarterly under the auspices of the Linguistic Society of South-Central New Caledonia. Any reprinting or other use of this publication without the express written consent of the LSSCNC and the National Football League is forbidden. As usual, send all submissions and communications to Tim Pulju at either his home or his university address; that is, either 6500 S. Main #169, Houston, TX 77030 or Rice University, Department of Linguistics, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251. [SpecGram Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, JLSSCNC is no longer accepting submissions, and their offices have long closed. However, submissions that would have been appropriate ... [ more ]


16. A Bit-O-History—A Letter from the Managing Editor (26 visits)

A Bit-O-History. A Letter from the Managing Editor. Well, the truth shall out, as they say. Several keen-eyed subscribers to SpecGram have noted that, while the official date of SpecGram’s founding is 1276, the lawsuit Þorkell Leifsson vs. SpecGram, which refers to events dating from at least 954, was settled last year, implying that Speculative Grammarian is at least 300 years older than we let on. That, in fact, is true, and has been previously alluded to, in the deliberately oblique comment about “the myths of [SpecGram’s] pre-history prior to its official founding by Petrus Hispanus.” The myths are not so mythical, and the pre-history in ... [ more ]


17. Editor’s Contractually-Obligated Introduction—Mikael Thompson (26 visits)

Editor’s Contractually-Obligated Introduction. Mikael Thompson. It is meet and proper to say a few words of explanation1 about how this collection came to be. At the council at which we agreed with all alacrity to contribute to the Festschrift for Trey Jones, it quickly became apparent that despite Trey’s well-earned reputation as the towering figure in modern linguistics, the very fact that this journal would be the venue for his Festschrift means he must perforce suffer a flood of rancorous, envy-ridden comments from lesser minds. It was agreed that we should consider a Festschrift for at least one other linguist who has made as great and profound a contribution to the field of ... [ more ]


18. One Hundred and Fifty Romans, or the French Sky—A Letter from the Managing Editor (26 visits)

One Hundred and Fifty Romans, or the French Sky. A Letter from the Managing Editor. You, gentle reader, are gently reading the first issue of the 150th volume of Speculative Grammarian. The release of this issue is a grandly momentous occasion, on par with the first manned trip to the moon, the eradication of smallpox, or the naming of Jerrold N. Fungellio as Carpet World's customer of the month in October 1986. The rich and varied tale of SpecGram has been related before in these hallowed pages, and faithful readers will know that the history of this great institution stretches back untold centuries. The so-called modern era of SpecGram, the series of one hundred and fifty ... [ more ]


19. Some Features of Arxiflbptlscfl—Trent Slater (26 visits)

Some Features of Arxiflbptlscfl. Trent Slater. Deep in the swampy forests of Sczzap-buttsclptui, around six kilometers from the nearest outpost of civilization (a Starbucks), lies the land of the Merry-Lingmanlaugh people. If one ignores their continual laughter and persists another day’s walk through the gabba-gabba bushes, you find a group of honoured old men and women who are, we are told, the last speakers of the strange language of Arxiflbptlscfl. An isolate, this language rivals any in the literature for its ability to counter existing linguistic understanding. Some Basic Rules. Any linguist learning Arxi (as we shall call it now) must begin by learning its taboos. The main one is an aversion ... [ more ]


20. You Have Two Cows...—Beau Vign & Dogie Vheel (26 visits)

You Have Two Cows.... by Beau Vign & Dogie Vheel, X. Quizzit Korps Center for Advanced Collaborative Studies. Many students of politics and economics are familiar with the “You have two cows...” series of satirical metaphors for various political and economic systems. The most commonly cited variations on the theme include the following: Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. Communism: You have two cows. You give them to the government and the government gives you some milk. Fascism: You have two cows. You give them to the government and the government sells you some milk. Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. These ... [ more ]


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Last updated Aug. 7, 2026.