Quotes—Page 10: More of 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.

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Q700. The Oxford Comma: A Solution, brought to you by the beloved Cockney flower vendor, Eliza Doolittle.

Christine


Q699. Why natural language processing is hard.

—Eric Torreborre


Q698. Syntactic ambiguity explained with cartoons!

Fabian Steeg


Q697. The fact that I understand this and want this to happen to me both horrifies me and intrigues me.

—Object of Procrastination


Q696. Linguistics: Ruining your social life, one conversation at a time.

Linguistics Y’all


Q695. After years of studying linguistics, it took me a few minutes to remember that small talk was a thing.

Iron Man is my Spirit Animal


Q694. Another excellent illustration from SpecGram.

All Things Linguistic


Q693. Damn Amerindian languages, you scary! xɬp’χʷɬtɬpɬɬskʷc’who needs vowels?

Iron Man is my Spirit Animal


Q692. Speculative Grammarian: ...weil Grammatik Spaß macht...

Antonio Machicao y Priemer


Q691. Μια ξεκαρδιστική αποτύπωση είκοσι μη-επισήμων ρητορικών φορμών, που όμως αποτελούν μέρος της καθημερινότητας των ανθρώπων.

Sting


Q690. Oh, YES!

Jenny Beaumont


Q689. Lingua Pranca is also quite funny.

Trillian42


Q688. This site has some hilarious ambiguities:

Trillian42


Q687. The Perils of Parody: There are times when reality severely strains the resources of parody. But some brave souls try and try (god bless their hearts). This one came my way recently. A good friend tells me that s/he found the original far less plausible and much funnier. Judge for yourself.

Norbert Hornstein


Q686. A damn good joke.

Deborah Cameron


Q685. Oh my.

Making a Minute a Moment


Q684. This makes me so happy. Why didn’t I think of this when I was taking Syntax classes?!

—Christine


Q683. If you don’t teach syntax using a lot of BDSM jokes, you’re doing it wrong.

For to Save Her Shoes from Gravel


Q682. Yeah, it’s all about raising-to-subject and object-control, and dominance and C-command, and merging and adjoining and projection, and let’s not forget government and binding... Basically, if your TA for syntax is hot, you’re doomed.

Vanessa


Q681. Linguistics has the funniest, most under-appreciated jokes.

kaesespaetzle


Q680. I’ve been looking for a way to make linguistics visually interesting. I think I found it.

Iron Man is my Spirit Animal


Q679. Since stumbling on SpecGram several days ago, I have wasted countless seconds reading the entire archives of back issues. Please keep up writing about satirical linguistics, as otherwise I will have to go back to work.

—Jeremy Martin


Q678. If you’ve got a spare 40 minutes, linguistic laffs with those wacky funsters at Speculative Grammarian. No, really.

Mark Moore


Q677. That is the strangest blog post I’ve read in a while, but quite funny. xD

—Malene M


Q676. Love that first Table of Contents. Sheer brilliance!

Joan Hockman


Q675. That was very amusing.

Maribou


Q674. Those are lovely!

Janet Miles


Q673. Lightweight, and recommended: “Important Idioms in Contemporary Science.”

Suzette Haden Elgin


Q672. All this talk of over-inflection reminded me of an excellent piece of linguistic satire, such as I enjoin all to read.

—R.Rusanov


Q671.I’ll have whatever Chomsky is having.” The whole neighborhood heard me laughing.

—achaosofdesire


Q670. Coincidentally, I take a hearty structuralist approach to every meal

—wonderfulcasserole


Q669. Read the whole post. It’s truly mad. :)

Diane Duane


Q668. The entire thing is great.

Plock Goes the Dodo


Q667. Pls check SpecGram for more fun!

Spectre


Q666. This literally has to be the best thing I’ve ever read lol. And I use the words “literally” and “best” quite loosely.

cue-the-violins


Q665. A bit of linguistic dork humor: the difference between phonemics (the sounds) and phonetics (the way the sounds are realized).

—The Blue Shore of Silence


Q664. Listening to Language Made Difficult keeps me connected to the weird side of academic linguistics now that I’m out of grad school. I also say “pyalatalization” a lot since the Self-Definer episode came out.

Brianne Hughes


Q663. I am the Phonetician.

writingfish


Q662. AAA­AAA­AAA­AAR­RRR­RGG­GGG­HHH­HHH­HH MIN­I­MAL­IST SYN­TAC­TI­CIANS DO NOT HAVE ‘WHAT­EV­ER CHOM­SKY IS HAV­ING’ AAA­AAA­RRR­GGG­HHH­HH. But the rest is funny.

syntactician


Q661. I gotta disagree here. I believe that a corpus linguist would go for spaghetti, because you get more bits of data per plate.

thewantsies


Q660. Loving it, though I’m pretty sure the OT person would have responded by going through a list of pasta constraints, e.g. *BREADTH for flat wide lasagna noodles or whatever…

—funnycountry


Q659. I sure as hell hope Chomsky never actually said any of the things the satire quotes him as saying.

Tom Chappell


Q658. Patterns of language contact and the helical structure of DNA: Coincidence? I think not! Sershen has only scratched the surface with the example in this article. Nobel Prize, anyone?

Erich Fickle


Q657. Hahahaha!! Seems serious, doesn’t it? Startling...

Maite Urquiza


Q656. You guys make me laugh so hard. Awesome.

Mary Clarkson Rempel


Q655. Lucky Frog. Lucky Toad. They still had a coffee pot. And I bet they had a teaspoon as well. They obviously don’t teach at Monash...

Jenny Beaumont


Q654. My day is so much better for reading this.

Lykara Ryder


Q653. And they lived happily ever after.

Callum Robson


Q652. /OT/ → [Obviously Thrown-Together]

agoodsharppencil


Q651. Why do they say it was a hoax? It works beautifully for Pirahã.

Draconitas


More ...


Last updated Jan. 22, 2025.