Speculative Grammarian Podcast
by Speculative Grammarian
Speculative Grammarian—the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics—is now available as an arbitrarily irregular audio podcast. Our podcast includes readings of articles from our journal, the occasional musical number or dramatical piece, and our talk show, Language Made Difficult. Language Made Difficult is hosted by the SpecGram LingNerds, and features our signature linguistics quiz—Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics—along with some discussion of recent-ish linguistic news and whatever else amuses us. Outtakes are provided.
Episodes
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. L
Language Made Difficult, Vol. L — The SpecGram LingNerds are on their own this time. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss the dangers of mispronouncing the names of Canadian provinces, and then advise students as to what they should not do. They also fail to...
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLIX
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLIX — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Tim Pulju. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss purported evidence against Chomsky, and then reveal the titles of their books, all beginning with Language:.
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIII
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVIII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss a one hundred word language, and then move on to the royal and other orders for adjectives.
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVII
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVII — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Kean Kaufmann. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds briefly discuss some innovative bits of English Grammar—no, totally!—and then try out some new parlor games featuring archaic English words.
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVI
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLVI — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by returning guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something else that tries to look like iconicity, and then look at some innovative and/or abominable on-going changes in...
-
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLV
Language Made Difficult, Vol. XLV — The SpecGram LingNerds are joined by guest Pete Bleackley. After some Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics, the LingNerds discuss something that tries to look like iconicity, and then share their favorite linguistical jokes.
-
The History of the Indo-Europeans—An Agony in Six Fits
The History of the Indo-Europeans—An Agony in Six Fits; by Tim Pulju; From Volume CLXXIV, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, December 2015 — Once upon a time, on a warm spring day about 5500 years ago, a young Indo-European named Bright-Fame drove an ox-cart into the family compound.…
more -
Plagiarize This!
Plagiarize This!; by An Unidentifiable Subset of the SpecGram Editorial Board; From Volume CLXXII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2015 — It has come to our attention that entirely unfounded, spurious, and indefatigable accusations of heinous plagiarism have been made against the X....
-
Plagiarism Uncovered in SpecGram Pages
Plagiarism Uncovered in SpecGram Pages; by The Linguistic Inquirer; From Volume CLXXII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2015 — Pursuant to the terms of the pre-litigious resolution of “Grammar Entelechy v. Speculative Grammarian” the editors of SpecGram have recently disclosed the…
more -
Degenerative Grammar
Degenerative Grammar; by Desirée-Debauchée Cyntacks & Dec A. D’Cadence; From Volume CLXXII, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, February 2015 — Since the 1950’s, linguistics has been wild with excitement over Chomsky’s insights, collectively known as “generative grammar.” As all non-linguists...
-
Hazards of Fieldwork Among the Hiithrobnsn
Hazards of Fieldwork Among the Hiithrobnsn; by William Moore-Crusoe; From Volume CLXXIV, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, October 2015 — The Hiithrobnsn live in a remote, marshy and inhospitable region of Guyana. A traditional greeting amongst them is “Mind where you walk,” wise advice, as it...
-
Top Tips For Linguists—Part II
Top Tips For Linguists—Part II; by The SpecGram Editorial Board; From Volume CLXXIV, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, December 2015 — Realizing that many linguists, young and old, find themselves unsure of how best to succeed (or have success thrust upon them), we of the Speculative…
more -
Top Tips For Linguists—Part I
Top Tips For Linguists—Part I; by The SpecGram Editorial Board; From Volume CLXXIV, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2015 — Realizing that many linguists, young and old, find themselves unsure of how best to succeed (or have success thrust upon them), we of the Speculative Grammarian...
-
Linguistic Contributions To The Formal Theory Of Big-Game Hunting
Linguistic Contributions To The Formal Theory Of Big-Game Hunting; by R. Mathiesen; From Lingua Pranca, June, 1978 — The Mathematical Theory of Big-Game Hunting must surely be ranked among the major scientific achievements of the twentieth century. That this is so is largely the work of one man…
more -
Ye Olde Punnery—The Jigglepike Fragment
Ye Olde Punnery—The Jigglepike Fragment; by SpecGram Wire Services; From Volume CLXX, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, May 2014 — A small fragment of a manuscript believed to be part of the lost play “Ye Olde Punnery” by Willhebe Jigglepike has been unearthed at the bottom of a centuries-old...
-
Reviewerish Field Notes
Reviewerish Field Notes; by Cy Tayshon and M. Paktphaq-Torr; From Volume CLXXV, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, February 2016 — One of the most important skills linguists-to-be must develop is the ability to interpret the true meaning behind apparently transparent locutions used by more…
more -
Features of Tea: A Potted History
Features of Tea: A Potted History; by Pete Bleackley; From Volume CLXXIII, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, June 2015 — According to legend, tea originated when an emperor of China was adding the feature [+boiled] to his drinking-water, having deduced the correlation with [−disease]. A chance...
-
The Devil’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
The Devil’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics; by David Krystal &Adam Baker; From Volume CLXXV, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, January 2016 — C-command. A f-formal r-relationship m-made n-necessary by an u-unfortunate e-early c-commitment to b-binary t-trees. (Read by Phineas Q....
-
Close and Extended Relative Clauses—A Critical Account
Close and Extended Relative Clauses—A Critical Account; by Fang Gui-Ling; From Volume CLXIV, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, June 2012 — Analytical approaches to relative clauses have by and large incorporated the growing body of evidence regarding biological constraints on embedding.…
more -
Handy Definitions for Newcomers to the Field of Linguistics
Handy Definitions for Newcomers to the Field of Linguistics; by Ken Miner and David J. Peterson; From Collateral Descendant of Lingua Pranca, October 2009 — back-formation: lumbar exercises / circumfix: unhealthy fascination with circuses; a cross inside a circle... (Read by Brock Schardin.)
-
Parenting Styles and Progeny Success—A Practical Guide to Broken-Record Parenting
Parenting Styles and Progeny Success—A Practical Guide to Broken-Record Parenting; by Psammeticus Press; From Volume CLXXI, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2014 — Parents, do you feel like a broken record? “Bath time!” ... “Shut the door!” ... “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” ......
-
The Man Who Left His Deictic Center in San Francisco
The Man Who Left His Deictic Center in San Francisco; by Edward Tapir and Benjamin Wharf; From Volume CLXX, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, May 2014 — One of our esteemed colleagues has attended numerous semantics conferences around the world, from the sad streets of Paris to gloomy Rome and...
-
The Compleat Linguist
The Compleat Linguist; by John-Boy Walton; From Collateral Descendant of Lingua Pranca, October, 2009 — Man’s sentence’s in vain, for it’s subject is pain... (Read by Brock Schardin.)
-
Perpetuation of Traditional Gender Roles by European Languages
Perpetuation of Traditional Gender Roles by European Languages; by Douglas S. Files; From Volume I, Number 1, of Babel, March 1990 — Several European languages encourage the continuation of traditional sex roles through the gender underlying their nouns. In this paper, the French, Spanish, and...
-
Selections from Hymns for the Reverent Linguist
Selections from Hymns for the Reverent Linguist; from The Linguistick Hymnary (1845); From Volume CLXVI, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2012 — Typology, Typology; Joy to the Word. (Performed by Anna Weingarten.)
-
Saving Endangered Languages with Prescriptivism
Saving Endangered Languages with Prescriptivism; by Neil de Veratte; From Volume CLXXII, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, April 2015 — All over the world, languages are being lost at an alarming rate. Field linguists do their best to preserve these languages, but find their speaker…
more -
On the Mytholinguistic Significance of Butterflies
On the Mytholinguistic Significance of Butterflies; by Mary Hadlitt-Lamb; From Volume CLXXI, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, December 2014 — A remarkable cross-linguistic pattern can be observed in the words for “butterfly”. While these words seldom appear to be cognate even in closely…
more -
A Possible Prional Source for Linguistic Degeneration from Prolonged Ailuric Exposure
A Possible Prional Source for Linguistic Degeneration from Prolonged Ailuric Exposure; by B. Bubo, T. Tyto, S. Strix, and A. Asio; From Volume CLIII, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, September 2007 — Over the past two decades, an increasing number of adult patients have presented for…
more -
Redundantly Multilingual Pretension Markers in BWFSEDPRCLCEE
Redundantly Multilingual Pretension Markers in BWFSEDPRCLCEE; by Saszkwacz Qumkwaat & Yýŷỳ Yẙÿẙÿẙ; From Volume CLV, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, February 2009 — After generating minimal interest in linguistic circles during the 1960’s, very little linguistic attention has been paid to a...
-
How Linguistics Got Her Groove Back
How Linguistics Got Her Groove Back; by Gunnr Guðr Entgegenlächeln; From Volume CLXIII, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, January 2012 — Common wisdom—an oxymoron if ever there was one—has it that linguistics and linguists themselves have a bit of a reputation problem. Are linguists boring?...
-
The Quotta and the Quottiod
The Quotta and the Quottiod; by Vére Çélen; From Volume CLI, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, October 2006 — It is not news to linguists that particular forms of punctuation can be problematic. One frequent source of considerable friction in certain circles is the unending debate over whether...
-
The Laziest Language on Earth
The Laziest Language on Earth; by Claude Searsplainpockets; From Volume CLIII, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2007 — Back in 1922, my Historical Linguistics professor, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, noted that ease of articulation is a driving force in language change—hence the regular...
-
On the Cryptographic Uses of TLAs
On the Cryptographic Uses of TLAs; by Dash Ŋ. Ooba-Nuhd; From Volume CLXXIII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, July 2015 — Claude SPP in his angry screed, “TLAs DOA? TBD!” entirely missed the point of BizSpeak, as do most speakers of BizSpeak. (Read by Trey Jones.)
-
TLAs DOA? TBD!
TLAs DOA? TBD!; by Claude Searsplainpockets; From Volume CLII, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2007 — In the course of several months of anthropological and linguistic data collection among native speakers of BizSpeak, a degraded and virulent offshoot of English used by mentally...
-
Großwortbuch—Book Announcement from Psammeticus Press
Großwortbuch—Book Announcement from Psammeticus Press; by Vürffle Tsyllynda; From Volume CLVIII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2010 (Read by Trey Jones.)
-
Proto-Indo-Spamopean—An Early Exemplar of “Ye Olde Baite of Yon Clicke”
Proto-Indo-Spamopean—An Early Exemplar of “Ye Olde Baite of Yon Clicke”; by X. Kuvador, R. Kialugist, and Pael E. O’Ntolojiss; From Volume CLXXIII, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, August 2015 — While many today lament the imminent demise of the English language (Hat 2006), the corrupting...
-
Labyrinths & Linguists
Labyrinths & Linguists; by Craig Kopris; From Volume CLXXIII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, July 2015 — While perusing the wax cylinder recordings stored at one of the major archives on the eastern seaboard (which will be left unnamed to protect the reputations of all concerned), I ran...
-
The Linguistic Placebo Effect
The Linguistic Placebo Effect; by I. Tinerant; From Volume CLXXI, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, November 2014 — Literature Review / Of course it is important, when setting out on an academic adventure, to properly prepare by briefly reviewing the relevant existing literature. A brief…
more -
Phonologist’s Shanty
Phonologist’s Shanty; Traditional; From Volume CLXXIV, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, September 2015 — What shall we do with the velar nasal? / What shall we do with the velar nasal? / What shall we do with the velar nasal? / Early in the morning. (Performed by Pete Bleackley.)
-
Chickenese—A Grammatical Sketch
Chickenese—A Grammatical Sketch; by Damon Lord; From Volume CLI, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, July 2006 — Many linguists and animal psychologists have sought to discover if mankind is the sole species to have developed language. Recent experiments with chickens at Foxchester University…
more -
The “Vowel Space” DVD Boxed Set
The “Vowel Space” DVD Boxed Set; Advertisement; From Volume CLXXI, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, December 2014 — The “Vowel Space” DVD Boxed Set—Available for the first time ever in one collection! (Read by Trey Jones.)
-
“Language” Characteristics in Certain Higher Primates—(Professors of Education)
“Language” Characteristics in Certain Higher Primates—(Professors of Education); by Charles Bishop; From Son of Lingua Pranca, November, 1979 — Scientists have long recognized that the average professor of education is remarkably close to man himself in brain capacity and physiology, and we have...
-
On THE Speculative Grammarian
On THE Speculative Grammarian; by THE Editor-in-Chief; From Volume CLXXIII, (173) Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, May 2015 — We are often asked why we don’t use “the” in front of “Speculative Grammarian” in the name of our journal. (Well, that’s a bit generous. Not enough people ask. Many…
more -
Ambiguity In Action: A Bawdy Count
Ambiguity In Action: A Bawdy Count; by Norman C. Stageberg; From Lingua Pranca, June, 1978 — One major source of humor is found in the many and various situations of everyday life, both as they occur in actuality and as they are refined and recounted in literature. A second major source of humor…
more -
The Art of the -ome
The Art of the -ome; by Z. En ‘Bud’ Dhist; From Volume CLX, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, October 2010 — Despite the fact that, contrary to my expectations, I did not receive a request to be an invited speaker at the CELGA workshop “Perspectives on the Morphome” this month, I thought it...
-
A Warning for Linguists
A Warning for Linguists; by Keith Slater; From Volume I, Number 2, of Babel, April 1990 — We in linguistics are well-accustomed, by now, to the fact that other disciplines—notably the “hard” sciences—regularly upstage us and grab all the glory in the public eye. Normally, this doesn’t, and...
-
Linguistic Emissions Reduction Sought
Linguistic Emissions Reduction Sought; by SpecGram Wire Services; From Volume CLIII, Number 1, of Speculative Grammarian, September 2007 — Sanaa, Yemen—Tempers flared at global climate talks today, as environmental and linguistic concerns met head-on. The dispute is about so-called “inefficient...
-
Grammar Cop
Grammar Cop; by Trey Jones; From Volume CLXXIII, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, July 2015 — Theirs know kneed two feere! / Grammer Kop iz hear! (Performed by The 3x3 Men’s Room Chorus.)
-
Linguistics Nerd Camp—Marsha and Her Thesis
Linguistics Nerd Camp—Marsha and Her Thesis; by Bethany Carlson; From Volume CLXI, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, April 2011 — Marsha and her thesis made a cute couple, but their friends worried that she was trying to change him. (Described by Keith Slater.)
-
One Hundred Words for Snowclone
One Hundred Words for Snowclone; by Claude Searsplainpockets and X. Izthunüblakk; From Volume CLXX, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, June 2014 — Any linguist worthy of attending SALT knows of the linguistic myth that eskimos have hundreds of words for snow. There was even some sort of...
About this show
Speculative Grammarian—the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics—is now available as an arbitrarily irregular audio podcast. Our podcast includes readings of articles from our journal, the occasional musical number or dramatical piece, and our talk show, Language Made Difficult. Language Made Difficult is hosted by the SpecGram LingNerds, and features our signature linguistics quiz—Lies, Damned Lies, and Linguistics—along with some discussion of recent-ish linguistic news and whatever else amuses us. Outtakes are provided.
Hosted by
Speculative Grammarian