Quotes—Page 6: 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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Q900. The guys and gals @SpecGram do [bad puns] for a living. Also check of their podcast, it’s quite awesome!

—Max


Q899. An introduction to linguistics in haiku form. Love the last part of the haiku. :))

—Ikmi Nur Oktavianti


Q898. Are Linguists boring? Incomprehensible? Evil? Guys from SpecGram... I love you.

—linguisticious


Q897. Hvis noe er verre enn lingvister er det lingvister med tørr humor.

—Stig Johan Berggren


Q896. I won’t try to explain why I found this funny. YMMV.

CAVEAT DVMPTRVCK


Q895. Speculative Grammarian (and other related zines archived on the same site) is one of the finest linguistics satires. The occasional articles also delve into miniature conlanging, although for satirical purposes obviously.

One of my favourite articles deals with numbers in the Moundsbar language.

Miekko


Q894. I got SpecGram’s Essential Guide to Linguistics. Pure awesomeness!

—Livs


Q893. Your blog is evilly wonderful. I had to go out and buy a copy of The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. I hope you’re happy. :P But seriously, you’re wonderful!

Lost Journeyman


Q892. Thirteen Untranslatable Wordswithout translations of course, cuz, you know.

Society for Linguistic Anthropology


Q891. SpecGram does good puns.

Mr Interpreter’s Translation and Interpreting Humour


Q890. SpecGram: For hardened linguists in need of fun.

Grammar Policeman


Q889. Grammar students started working on tree diagrams this week. Here is a fun comic just for you!

Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics


Q888. At last there is an organization that can bridge the hurtful chasm between language prescriptivists and descriptivists: The Original English Movement.

Nicole Stockdale


Q887. Proto abal-abal, nih. Contoh hipotesis yg keliru dan menyesatkan. Silakan didengarkan.

—Kenal Linguistik


Q886. Need a definition for any word, even if it has never come close to actually existing? Check out Speculative Grammarian’s new dictionary.

Editor Mark


Q885. The Onion meets Language: Speculative Grammarian...

Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics


Q884. A few of these I can’t appreciate fully (yet!?) but I’ve been laughing pretty hard at the rest of them.

Amy Goodnough


Q883. An unconventional and amusing reform of the English writing system. What do you think? Should we accept the proposal?

Canada Institute of Linguistics


Q882. Now, what do you want for dinner? Spaghetti or Lasagna?

De Gruyter Mouton


Q881. Despite decades of work on the problem, linguistics (apparently) isn’t cool.

—Griffith Languages and Linguistics


Q880. A funny linguistic take on common idioms!

Pling: Penn Linguistics Society


Q879. This is fun, and a bit of a grammar drill at the same time. Hilarious results!

Louise O’Neill


Q878. Highly informative!

Amalgamaty semantyczne/ conceptual blending


Q877. How many middles can you read in one sitting? My eyes bleed easily for this article.

—Todd Snider


Q876. The latest chapter of the LingQuest Saga (guest written by Speculative Grammarian!) is now available! Thanks to Trey Jones of SpecGram fame for gracing our Fund Drive with his sparkling wityou’ll want to read this one, folks, because it’s great.

The LINGUIST List


Q875. When did “book trailers” become a thing? This is an understatedly amusing trailer for an understatedly amusing book from the understatedly amusing Speculative Grammarian. The Gregorian chants in the background are understatedly amusing, too.

EKYOLC


Q874. You must see this website if you love linguistics and #linguisthumor.

homosapienslinguisticus


Q873. Rätselspaß: LingDoku, Sudoku für Linguist/innen.

Kristin Kopf


Q872. Someone’s holding a pretty serious grudge, from, I’m guessing, maybe a semester of Greek, maybe a couple years?

baruspharagos


Q871. There. You needed to hear it.

—Vukovic Nikola


Q870. This is one of the best things that’s ever appeared on the internet.

Captain Canadia


Q869. I’m very glad I bought the hardcopy of the book. It was worth much more than what you charged, because it keeps on giving and giving me great guffaws. This book will be extracting linguisticky laughs out of me ‘til I die! It is surely one of the best values I ever acquired in a new book. Making it available as a download is like selling a car for for the price of a bicyclea shockingly, stunningly, jaw-droppingly good deal for the buyer!

—J Paul S


Q868. It was a dark and verbal night: Bulwer-Lytton for speculative linguists.

Arthur D. Hlavaty


Q867. When “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” makes sense.

—Tony Finch


Q866. I’m still mad that the IPA consortium refuses to add the double-dot wide-O to the phonetic alphabet.

nuephelkystikon


Q865. That’s diabolical!

—Siva Kalyan


Q864. Given the apparent frequency and clustering of two letter “words,” we think it might be a linguistic formula, or formulaic statement, that we are unlikely to tease out, not being “True Linguists” (though we did enjoy/cringe at Derrida’s paper airplanes!).

—Tanjam and Adam Jacobson


Q863. What’s the worst sentence to start a linguistically-themed novel with?

—Andrew Ducker


Q862. Hahahahaha I just did it.

Okay, velar trill. No problem. Okay, nasal. Gotta constrict that airway. Okay, it’s voiceless so now I just have to breathe in.

Followed by hysterical laughter because I feel like telling a linguist to do that phoneme is like saying “loser says what?” really fast.

xenoglossic


Q861. The best phoneme to tell people about is the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill. People who know phonetics/linguistics will sit there and try and logic out how to make the noise.

CaptainSasquatch


Q860. I figured it was some sort of rotational cipher, but no luck with that approach, so I assume it’s a substitution cypher, which, let’s face it, is far too much work for me.

——J. L. Barnes


Q859. Oh lord, “entail spaghetti noodles.” I never realized what a rich vein of humor entailment was. It is literally applicable anywhere. I can go to starbucks and order a cappucino and boom I’ve got three entailed drinks.

TheFarmReport


Q858. This is a wonderful site! Spaghetti or Lasagna for Linguists

—MelkorDCLXVI


Q857. It’s amazing because it covers almost all of the stereotypical ignorance.

—nahden


Q856. Just bought the book. It better be good!

davrockist


Q855. Oh man!!! I want a book!

—brenan6


Q854. Occasionally, the research causes me to focus.

——Virginia Bouchard


Q853. I have an undying adoration for Speculative Grammarian.

Risla_Amahendir


Q852. Now that is great satire.

WugOverlord


Q851. I am dying. This is beautiful.

alynnidalar


More ...


Last updated Jan. 22, 2025.