SpecGram—Quotes: What People are Saying

Here are a few more of our favorite things people have said about Speculative Grammarian over the years, collected wild on the internet, or domesticated in email.

Q600. You know you’re a linguist when you see that they forgot to devoice one of the final consonants, as per the normal rules of Russian.

—limetom

Q599. Hey, this is SpecGram.

—Cosman246

Q598. Mmmm, juicy allomorphs. Trinidadius Functionalisticus, I personally prefer feeding on PPs.

—Kei Pantin Malik

Q597. I feel bad for having laughed at this.

—Ishmael Ho

Q596. If you get this, then you know you’re a serious Linguistics geek.

—Ben Braithwaite

Q595. Speculative Grammarian has many fun elements of English linguistics. My favorite section is about the ambiguity of English.

—Daniel White

Q594. SpecGram, satirični jezikoslovci! Najnovejša študija: Expirations in Minimalism—Zombie Linguistics.

—Razvezani jezik

Q593. I just ... found this hilarious article on Hippies naming their kids (and more). It brings to mind that singer, Prince, who changed his name to a symbol that had no pronunciation.

—Carol (not Coral)

Q592. Love the awesome journal. The pod-cast is phenomenal and certainly the most amusing pod-cast I’ve ever heard! Although, as pointed out in the second pod-cast, post-structuralist literary theory would argue that it is my listener-response which creates the humor and awesomeness rather than anything inherent in the pod-cast itself.

—Apollo Hogan

Q591. For hopeless linguistics majors like me. They describe themselves as “the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics,” and the ‘scholarly material’ they put out is hilarious. And often depressing.

—thirty-second-note

Q590. Des revues un peu “différentes”.

—La commission des programmes en Linguistique
Université catholique de Louvain

Q589. Those are among the most deliciously pithy footnotes I’ve ever seen. But what kind of institution really has a Department of Lexicology and Glottometrics?

—ToussianMuso

Q588. Thanks to you for your outstanding service for linguists!

—Chris Heffner

Q587. A fascinating discussion on the value of umpteen.

—Gruff

Q586. Must remember to revisit [SpecGram] on occasion, in order to stretch my satirical linguistics abilities.

—Chelsea Valentine

Q585. Comedy at its finest!

—Philemon

Q584. My favorite is the phonetic sprinkler.

—Mark J. Harris

Q583. Speculative Grammarian, have I mentioned I love you?

—Christina Castedo

Q582. Yes, you pretty much have to be a linguist already (or well advanced towards that goal) to enjoy Speculative Grammarian: you can’t understand a satire if you don’t know what is being satirized.

—marie-lucie

Q581. It has always seemed to me that Speculative Grammarian assumes a pretty high level of familiarity with academic linguistics. The web page even bills it (satirically) as a scholarly journal. One could say that SpecGram is [+specialist, -bona fide] while the envisioned Linguistics Today would be [-specialist, +bona fide].

—Chad Nilep

Q580. Heh, I love SpecGram. ‘Fifty Grades of A’

—Nikki Trigg

Q579. My love of satirical linguistics has now overlapped with my love of chickens.

—Hen

Q578. Both parents and speech-language pathologists are sometimes guilty of over-analyzing a toddler’s speech patterns. ... Consider that even adults vary tremendously in their sentence lengths. ... One satirical study even parodied the use of sentence length in language pathology, pointing out that adults’ sentence lengths vary depending on the amount of coffee that they have had.

—Juniper Russo

Q577. It might be a good idea if [everyone] were occasionally to read the online journal Speculative Grammarian. It might encourage us to be somewhat more serious about our writing, for let us not ever forget what Sophocles once said:

πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ὀμπρέλλας δεινότερον πέλει
There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than an umbrella.

—Martin Rommel

Q576. How wonderful! ... I think 98% of MLA post-panel Q&A interactions could be categorized as one of those twenty special forms.

—Mike

Q575. That is silly.

—Dennis G. Jerz

Q574. Speculative Grammarian?! How did I manage to never hear of this before?! I have the feeling that my life will never be the same.

—Esteban Vázquez

Q573. Huh! He can’t be serious, can he?

—James

Q572. The difference between phonetic/phonemic transcription is also confusing enough that it merits its own linguistics cartoons.

—aedia λ

Q571. Twórcy Speculative Grammarian nie mogli znieść, że co i rusz okazuje się, że w słownikach brakuje słów. I tak powstała Splekulatywnego Gramatyka Komplaetna Encyklopaedia Historycznych Kompendialnych Leksykonów Rzadkich i Archaicznych Gwar i Nomenklatur. Wreszcie możemy poznać znaczenie WSZYSTKICH słów.

—No-qanek

Q570. A rather clever linguistics joke.

—Captain Haddock

Q569. It took me a couple of minutes to be able to read it and understand the differences, in both the word balloons and the images. Heh...very clever.

—zhanglong

Q568. Which are the rarest vowels/consonants? Definitely the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill—so rare it hasn’t yet been added to the IPA. The proposed symbol is Double Dot Wide O.

—egill

Q567. SpecGram, my life was incomplete. Then I found you. Wow.

—Safina Lalani

Q566. I’ve had no formal introduction to phonetics, but with a little trying, I figured it out... and was laughing my anatomy off for two minutes straight. Thank you for making my day!

—Harder

Q565. You can very well describe some speech with the IPA to the phonetic level (rather than phonemic), but then it requires a much more precise use of the IPA along with its diacritics. The problem with that is that it’s so dense that it’s almost unreadable. My favourite image to show the difference.

—vermillon

Q564. If you love language and words, this is a fun, tongue-in-cheek place to spend a moment.

—Patricia Green

Q563. Thank god I was alone when I tried pronouncing that!

—MäcØSŸ

Q562. Wytłumaczenie wszystkich możliwych słów.

—nosiwoda

Q561. It’s really awesome—I’m going to train hard until I can pronounce this consonant accurately in my sleep!

—Harder

Q560. This is the greatest thing I have ever seen.

—superkamiokande

Q559. It is quite a difficult sound to produce accurately at first. The secret is to be in a deeply relaxed state.

—Splog

Q558. Thought I’d throw a shout out for [the] website of Speculative Grammarian, self-described as “the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics.” I’m not affiliated, but one of my undergrad ling professors is Publisher Emeritus and I’ve found my fair share of linguistic amusement there.

—Rikker Dockum

Q557. Speculative Grammarian (where linguists go to laugh to death)

—Michael Sappir

Q556. This may be a bit too accurate for comfort...

—Tristan Higbee

Q555. I loved all of them so much!

—l33t_sas

Q554. I found this googling linguistic some such one day and I’m planning to do a pre med double major. Naturally, I was moderately annoyed and a bit concerned at an icy soul sucking future. It is a joke, but damn.

—roslicomet

Q553. No matter what I choose I end up in a soul crushing career. Poop. I guess I’ll enjoy my studies while I can!

—Shveet

Q552. Fries. Fries everywhere!

—DismantletheSun

Q551. I picked the closest one to what I really did and it was depressingly accurate. Wish I saw this earlier!

—gortallmighty

Quotes—Page 12: More of What People are Saying