Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXVII, Number 4 Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Senior Editor; Jonathan Downie, Senior Editor, Pete Bleackley, Contributing Editor; Associate Editors: Mark Mandel, Deak Kirkham; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Abby Crisp, Luca Dinu, Andrew Lamont, Matthew Lee, Joe McAvoy, Josh Nash, Steve Politzer-Ahles, Mary Shapiro; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Emic, Etic; Put Up in the Attic; June 2020 ... [ more ]
[sɜɹfsʌpdydz].Stephen Politzer-Ahles. I’m telling you, man, back then no one had ever dreamed of waves like that. We were wanting to try something new, we wanted to “experience strange shores”. Now this shore, it didn’t feel like anything any of us had ever done before. The waves coming out from it didn’t make any sense to us. It wasn’t like when you surf a familiar shore. You know how if you’re at a shore you know well, then you can understand the feel of the waves, and you can tell what’s coming next—like, certain kinds of waves never come after certain other ones, certain ones always go together, whatever—and you pick ... [ more ]
The Incipient Colonialism of IPA.Wallace Workaday, Professor of Meat Flapping in Linguistics, The Δίς Λεγόμενον Centre for Endeepened Ideation. If to describe is to own then to transcribe is to enthrone. From the grooming of a sciento-social race with the fast adoption of the Latin alphabet as the foundation of the linguistic enterprise, instantiated and exemplified by /k/ and /æ/ to cordoning off its extent with the refusal to acknowledge the / double-dot wide o / and the / ʙ –/, the International Phonetic Alphabet subjugates the subconscious mind of the researcher by enforcing a Platonian cave of Pavlovian conditioning. This much ... [ more ]
Letters to the Editor. Dear Speculative Grammarian, I was shocked to see that the wugs depicted in “When Irregular Forms Become Productive” were not observing social distancing. Don’t they know there’s a nasty bug going around? Yours concernedly, E.P. di Miologist ... Dear Epiglottal, You need to brush up on your ornithological virology and/or virological ornithology. Wugs are quails and thus not vulnerable to CORVID-19 —Eds. ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ Yo, chum(p)s, I would like to chime in with complete agreement with your recent article on the role of diacritics in silencing critics. This is entirely true. I have found that a swift diaeresis to the eyes with the index and ... [ more ]
What is SpecGram Doing in Response to COVID-19?.The SpecGram Pandemic Response Team† Interns. As the scourge of COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc in linguistics departments, universities, and elsewhere around the world, the average linguist may feel overwhelmed and helpless. To comfort our readers, we present what are possibly the nine most reassuring words in the English language: “We’re from Speculative Grammarian, and we’re here to help.” Below we outline the steps we are taking internally to slow the spread of COVID-19, followed by recommendations for linguists everywhere. What SpecGram is Doing For Everyone As part of our commitment to ... [ 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 ]
SpecGram Film and Media Club.with Linguist to the Stars, Mr Manfred M. McManus. There are many iconic lines in the Star Wars trilogy (sorry, original trilogy plus prequels (sorry, original trilogy plus prequels plus sequels plus spin offs)) such as ‘Of course I know him; he’s me’ (one of only four lines in the whole of the Star Wars films’ scripts to feature a semi-colon), ‘I don’t like you either’ Chewie’s immortal ‘Ghghghhgararghghgaagh’ and of course ‘something, something, something, dark side ... something, something, something, complete’. But in a recent poll of tip-top Star Wars lines, it was the resonance of ... [ more ]
Letter to the Recently Discovered Murapirã People.G. Stuart Dent. Hi there! I’m a linguistics graduate student at the University of the Northwest Corner of the Land of Enchantment, and documenting your language will be my thesis project! I was supposed to fly down to Brazil this weekend and make the arduous journey to your little out-of-the-way corner of the Amazon, but, you know, coronavirus. Wait, maybe you don’t know? It’s this massive pandemic that is killing lots of people and shutting down pretty much all travel worldwide. My university has decided to do this project using videoconferencing tools to protect you.1 You’ll surely be disappointed since—instead of ... [ more ]
Linguimericks, Book ७४. When lecturing on infixation, Be prepared for a little titillation. For examples in English Are often distinguished By a four-letter word: fornication —Emily Davis, A linguist there was of the Old School, Adhering to regular sound rule. In the evenings he’d stew As he guzzled his brew And called August Schleicher a damn fool —Pumptilian Perniquity, doctorate schmoctorate five years of shooing pre- scriptivist dogma and scripts’ joys and thrills, apothecarial powers don’t follow from studying syntax: I can’t get you pills! —Andrew Lamont, The Field Philologist A philologist went back in time To one thousand and seventy-nine. He saw a Dane fair And ... [ more ]
University News.Textbooks Hold the Key to Second Language Learning Development. by Ruthlessly Roving Reporter Miss Deakina Andrea Kirkhamia Results published yesterday from the Consortium of Higher Education Approaches to Teaching (CHEAT) suggest that textbooks hold the key to second language learning development. A series of experiments suggest that vocabulary, grammar and even abstract features of pronunciation such as liaison, ellipsis, etc. that emerge in connected speech, as well as the phonological rules underlying dialect forms, can in fact be learnt simply from being in the same room as a well-produced textbook, assuming it has lots of colourful pictures of happy language ... [ more ]
Satirising Satire: A Plea For Help From Our Loyal Readers.A Letter from Associate Editor Deak Kirkham. After a relatively quiet spring here at SpecGram Towers, whispers of malcontent which threaten to bubble over into genuine worry are audible throughout the marble-floored corridors. Staff writers are peering over the tops of their computers with looks of consternation; the interns are visibly jumpy; the SpecGram hairdresser has handed in his notice; even the Management is spending less time in the Executive Suite-cum-Spa and more time in the Lingua-Boardroom doing what it does best: discussing things. What could possibly be the concerns that give rise to such worry?, you naturally ... [ more ]
Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part E—Phonetics vs. Phonology.Hilário Parenchyma, C.Phil. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. We will skip the introduction, as we have been there, done that. Once more into the breach! For this installment in our series on Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, we will turn our attention to Phonetics and Phonology and the difference between the two: Phonetics:, ... Phonology:, ... Thanks to Professor Phlogiston, of the Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn, for the opportunity of a lifetime, as a student, to, on this occasion, share with so many of my fellow linguisticians my views, as illustrated above, concerning matters, which are of such immeasurable import ... [ more ]
The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective. Are you in a world of linguistic hurt? The SpecGram Linguistic Advice Collective (SLAC) will offer you empirical, empathic, emphatic advice you can use!* Remember, if you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, then you don’t need advice! So, if you need advice, trust us—and cut yourself some SLAC! ... Your Royal SLACness, Since you have previously offered such useful advice on English plurals, I have a query of my own: what is the plural of haggis? Having recently relocated to the land of tartan and bagpipes, I would find it quite useful to know. And speaking of which, where can I find one of those “wild ... [ more ]
Sonority: A Space Elevator Story.By Matthew “MattGyver” Lee, Student at Dallas Intergalactic University. I watched the new Star Wars trailers before writing this. Able to tell you might be. Hrmmm (Yoda 3ABY). To adapt a sentiment from Lovestrand (2014), any claim of a universal and well-defined ranking in linguistics might very well be a lie. Nevertheless, sonority, like many generalizations, is at the very least a promising and productive lie that is useful to study and build on. Sonority is the force that gives all phonologists their power (to be more precise, sonority and NSF Grants (Maling et al. 2019)). It is a mysterious energy found in all vocal sounds. It surrounds all classes of vocal sound in the ... [ 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 ]
Οо Εе Оο Аa Αa — Α Сrурtοgrаm.by Ting Tang, Walla Walla, & Bing Bang. For your puzzling pleasure, we present to you the following somewhat unconventional cryptogram. Unlike many other cryptograms, you probably can’t begin to solve this one by eye, and even pencil and paper may prove to be tools insufficient to the task. Welcome to the 21st Century! If you solve the cryptogram and send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by June 15th, 2020, you could win some SpecGram merch. The correct solution and winners will be announced in the next issue of Speculative Grammarian. — 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, but no, seriously, we’ve published a large collection of SpecGram articles, along with just enough new material to force obsessive collectors and fans to buy it, regardless of the cost. From the Introduction: The past twenty-five years have witnessed many changes in linguistics, with major developments in linguistic theory, significant expansion in language description, and even ... [ more ]
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 ]
Historical Reviews of Contemporaneous Interest.Retrieved from the SpecGram Archives by Tish O’Clair and Colin Fait. Our archives overflow with testimonials and reviews of SpecGram—good, bad, and indifferent—from ages past up to the present. Most of the crackpots valued readers who write to us to tell us what they think of us are inconsequential nobodies just normal people, but occasionally we have gotten praise or scorn from those who turn out to be historically important figures. As such, we have decided to share some of their thoughts with you crackpots valued readers who are, like us, inconsequential nobodies just normal people. The following ... [ more ]
SOS to the Rescue.Salphy Torque, Professor of Inner Monologue and Self-Torque Studies, University of South Taurk. As is well known, language is not a rich social semiotic which evolved incrementally alongside socio-cognitive and physiological hominin traits over millennia in order to share messages of various kinds with other hominins. Rather, language is in fact, and actually, a purely syntactic phenomenon which arose through a near instantaneous cognitive mutation which then provided a complete structural framework for creating meaning. Moreover, under this second (and clearly, demonstrably true) vision of language, its primary purpose is, of course, self-talk. And at no time in human history has ... [ more ]
