SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CXCIV, Number 4 Antepenultimate Issue Editor-in-Chief: Trey Jones; Executive Editors: Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson; Senior Editors: Jonathan Downie, Deak Kirkham; Contributing Editors: Pete Bleackley, Vincent Fish, Luca Dinu; Associate Editors: Yuval Wigderson, Daniel Swanson; Editorial Associates: Emily Davis, Carin Marais, Tel Monks; Comptroller General: Joey Whitford; Putting the /d͡ʒʌŋk/ in “Conjunctions”; July 2025, ... [ 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 ]

Speculative Grammarian Merchandise. Introduction. In order to lend a hand to our good friends and steadfast supporters over at the Linguist List during their 2006 fund drive, we prepared a small selection of limited edition SpecGram merchandise, including T-shirts, stickers and magnets. Originally these items were only available as prizes awarded as part of the Linguist List fund drive. In 2012, several of the SpecGram editors suffered from a rare form of collective frontal lobe damage, which made it seem like a good idea to put together a SpecGram book. The result in 2013 was The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. In 2014, Editor Mikael Thompson entered a deep fugue ... [ more ]

The /bɪɡɪnɪŋ/ of the /ɛnd/, A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief. Automagically Transcribed℠ by the, LingTechCo Dictaphonemizer 3.1™. T.J.: (yelling) Mr. Ó McBar van der Fitzez del Abבןsønовичόπουλescu ǃ Mr. Ó McBar van der Fitzez del Abבןsønовичόπουλescu ǃ I can’t figure out how to get this new-fangled Dictaphonemizer to turn on. I already wrangled a one-month extension and I still don’t have anything for my editorial, which ... [ more ]

Greek Particles. Two facts well-known to linguists for many years are that Ancient Greek orthography represented speech much more closely than does modern English orthography, or practically any other modern European orthography, and that speech, unlike writing, is full of hesitations, false starts, and meaningless expletive utterances which are not recorded in writing. For instance, In English, a typical spoken text might be: Well, it’s the, umm... you know, the one that, uh, you got from the store across the street. We can make a number of interesting observations about the meaningless expletives in the above and in similar texts, of which the interested reader can collect many more examples, if he is so inclined. The ... [ more ]

The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics . For decades, Speculative Grammarian has been the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics—and now it is available in book form—both physical and electronic! We wish we were kidding,¹ but no, seriously, we’ve published a large³ collection of SpecGram articles, along with just enough new material to force obsessive collectors and fans to buy it, regardless of the cost.⁴ From the Introduction: The past twenty-five years have witnessed many changes in linguistics, with major developments in linguistic theory, significant expansion ... [ more ]

The Boustrophedon-Plummerfeld Hypothesis, and Futurological Linguistics. Recently I found myself "fortunate enough to find such occasion" (Pyles & Algeo, P.46) as to weasel the word boustrophedon into a conversation. After having expounded on the many joyous properties of this word, I entreated my fellow conversational participant to remember the word, and attempt to become one of those few and proud who have used it casually in non-academia. In a subsequent discourse with my native English speaking informant, I asked her to recall the illustrious word. Her response was plummerfeld. After a brief laugh at her misrecollection, we considered its cause. This issue has taken up much of my thought and time, and I have ... [ more ]

Moving Greek Letters. In an earlier paper, “Performance Constraints and Move-α ” I demonstrated conclusively, through the use of a computer model, that the current GB movement theory is inadequate to explain the actual generation of texts of spoken English.¹ Attempts to deal with the problem have been unsuccessful so far.² Indeed, it seems that there is no way to keep Move-α in its present form and still maintain the idea that performance makes use of an underlying competence whose form is dictated by UG. This does not mean, as some of my less enlightened colleagues have suggested, that we should abandon movement rules altogether. The past thirty years have clearly shown, the ... [ more ]

Further Pre-Nara Japanese Poem Discoveries. SpecGram Wire Services, Tom Stinnett reporting. Archaeologists from the Basil Randolph Anderson Center for Lexico-Archeological Sartorial Poetry Studies (BRA-CLASPS), at the site of the pre-Nara dig in Japan have made further announcements. First, Translator Karōshi Sararīman at BRA-CLASPS has provided a likely title and possible translation of the first fragment, reported on earlier. Margo Edi and her fellow researchers have also provided another fragments of the exquisite poem about the woman wearing yellow garments. It is now clear that her name was Si (pronounced “Shee” in modern Japanese) and that the poem describes a ... [ more ]

LingDoku II. More, Better, Harder. Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Washington D.C.. In the April issue, Speculative Grammarian made a shameless attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Japanese number/logic game SuDoku by concocting a SuDoku-like activity suitable for Linguists. Our original LingDoku puzzle simplified the logical reasoning component of traditional SuDoku, and introduced a thin veneer of linguistics to create an artificial barrier to participation for non-linguists. The solution to last issue’s puzzle is given here. In all likelihood it is the correct solution, but nothing in life is certain. Well, as it turns out, the original LingDoku puzzle is ... [ more ]

Shigudo, Reluctantly. Sir Edmund C. Gladstone-Chamberlain, Professor Emeritus of Linguistic Science, Department of Lexicology and Glottometrics, Devonshire-upon-Glencullen University, Southampton. In 1963, at the tender age of 24, I found myself on an expedition deep in the Amazon Basin, up a smallish tributary of the Río Ucayali. There we encountered a well-established tribe of indigenous people, numbering close to 400 and living in relative isolation, who called themselves the Shigudo. Several members of the tribe spoke nearly fluent Spanish,¹ and we were able to communicate quite effectively with them. As our expedition was chiefly anthropological in nature, and the Shigudo were, anthropologically ... [ more ]

LingDoku—Like SuDoku, But For Linguists. Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Washington D.C.. The Japanese number/logic game SuDoku ... has become all the rage around the globe of late, and in a shameless attempt to cash in on that popularity, Speculative Grammarian is pleased to concoct a SuDoku-like activity for Linguists. Traditional SuDoku requires a certain amount of logical reasoning and subtle consideration of the evidence which many linguists probably find time-consuming, labor-intensive, and boring. LingDoku simplifies the logical components of SuDoku, and introduces a thin veneer of linguistics which confuses outsiders while making linguists feel superior. The rules of ... [ 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 ]

On Revising And Extending Wh-Movement. D. Terence Nuclear, Institute for Advanced Study, in Strangeness. I assume here familiarity with Chomsky (1977), and the entire literature, published and unpublished, written and unwritten, upon which it is based. Chomsky has been criticized, unfairly in my opinion, for attempting to reduce all of grammar to wh-movement. Rather, if he is open to criticism at all, it is because he has failed to appreciate how wide the domain of wh-movement really is. In his paper, Chomsky lists the following general characteristics of wh-movement. 1. It leaves a gap. 2. Where there is a bridge, there is an apparent violation of subjacency, PIC, and SSC. 3. It observes CPNC. 4. ... [ more ]

A Preliminary Field Guide to Linguists, Part Two. Athanasious Schadenpoodle, University of Nueva Escranton. Introduction The previous installment, dealing with Neoplatonicus and Functionalisticus, comprised a brief discussion of the less problematic genera in the family--less problematic in the sense that their grouping is not contested among those working in this area. This section will deal with two groups whose taxonomic status is a matter of quite some debate; to a large extent, the groupings presented should be taken as tentative, and done largely for the sake of organized presentation (cf. Gnibbes 1998 and Czechzindemeyl 1999 for representative positions on grouping of these ... [ more ]

Murphy’s Law as Applied to Field Linguistics. James Crippen. The last living speaker of the language you want to study either had a laryngectomy or lost all of his teeth last year. You will not be informed of this until a week after you arrive. The speaker’s family will be horribly offended by your wanting to leave, and once you return home they will write you depressing letters for years afterward. Either the phonetic symbols you need for your dissertation are typeable in your word processor but you lack a font for them, or the symbols are available in a font but cannot be input in your word processor. A job for a field linguist specializing in your area will always open one month after you leave for the field ... [ more ]

Letters to the Editor. Dear Editors, I was offended, nay, aghasted, by the amount of space you devoted to footnotes in the December editorial. Are you still unaware of the climate impact of footnotes? I expect such ignorance of the Social “Sciences” but Linguistics, as Noam likes to say, is science. Do your research, and stop the insanity! No more footnotes! Nevil Chamber Potts, Shiny College, Ontario ... Dear Weevil, Thank you for the feedback.^{1, 12, 13} —Eds — ¹ Notice that we didn’t say “helpful feedback” or “useful feedback” or even “feedback worthy of printing on toilet paper”.² ² And in case the ... [ 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 ]

Rasmus Rask Parallel Puzzle XVII. by Lila Rosa Grau. This is the seventeenth Rasmus Rask puzzle, devoted to the original Mr. Charming Scandinavian Linguist. The puzzle is similar to a crossword puzzle, in that there is a grid for filling in words and phrases, and clues for the ACROSS and DOWN directions. However, all the squares in a Rasmus Rask puzzle are filled with letters, and the answers to the clues may (but are not required to) overlap. Clues for a particular row or column are given together, in the order they appear in the grid. No indication of the amount of overlap between clues is given. Letters spelling out RASMUS RASK along two parallel diagonals are given to provide a framework for filling ... [ more ]

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