Speculative Grammarian Podcast

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 Oxyrhynchus® Brand Garbage Dump outside the sleepy burg of Stratford-upon-Revlon. (Read by The SpecGram Players.)

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 senior practitioners of the art and science of linguistics. (Read by The SpecGram Players.)

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 gust of wind led to the water becoming [+leaves], and the Emperor noticed it had become [+flavour]. (Read by Pete Bleackley.)

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. Phlogiston, Trey Jones, Butch McBastard, Declan Whitford Jones, Claude Searsplainpockets, Joey Whitford, Mairead Whitford Jones, and Zack Sjöberg.)

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. Labeling higher-ranked relatives as mothers, for example, sits well with our understanding that mother-child is the closest relative bond there is. Laboratory research on mice confirms that naturally embedded offspring are regularly found within their mothers, not their fathers. (Read by Cathal Peelo.)

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.)

Kill All Phoneticians; by Die Lingulelen; From Volume CLXIX, Number 3, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2014 — The taste of love is sweet / When two syntacticians meet / But can our love survive / If we don’t agree how to derive? (Performed by Die Lingulelen.)

λ♥[love] (Linguistics Love Song); by Christine Collins; From Volume CLXII, Number 1 of Speculative Grammarian, June 2011. — let me have your heart and i will give you love / the denotation of my soul is the above / if there’s anything i lack, it’s you / as my double brackets, you make me mean things / i can’t say enough (Used with permission.)

Val Harmony; by Edgar Allan Slater; From Volume XVI, Number 1 of Langue du Monde, The Journal of the Linguistic Society of South-Central New Caledonia, September 1991. — It was many and many a year ago, In a tower of ivory, That a maiden there lived who I did love, By the name of Val Harmony (Read by Jonathan van der Meer.)

The Phonetician’s Love Poem; by Epiphanios o Phantasiopliktos; From Volume CLXI, Number 1 of Speculative Grammarian, February 2011. — Sweet modulations of fundamental frequency / Air particles dancing to and fro (Read by Jonathan van der Meer.)

Love Queries of a Linguist; by John Miaou; From Volume CLVII, Number 3 of Speculative Grammarian, November 2009. — If I were a stop, would you be my explosion? If I were a nasal, would you be my syllabification? (Read by Jonathan van der Meer.)

My Love is Like a Colorless Green Simile; by Rasmus Burns; From Volume CLXIV, Number 2, of Speculative Grammarian, March 2012. — O my love's like a colorless green simile That's newly sprung from your lips. (Read by Jonathan van der Meer.)

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Draw a Tree Diagram; by Alex Savoy; From Volume CLXI, Number 2 of Speculative Grammarian, March 2011. — How do I love thee? Let me draw a tree diagram— I was maundering, lonely as a bilabial trill, When I first heard your voice—(some breathy strange tongue) I was love-struck at once—(after all, I was young) (Read by Jonathan van der Meer.)

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!” ... “Stop hitting your brother!” ... “Be quiet!” ... The list of repetitive parental complaints seems endless and, at times, fruitless. But now you can put the nature of your nurture to work for you and your child! (Read by Trey Jones, Joey Whitford, Claude Searsplainpockets.)

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 even lonely Manhattan. A recent conference at the University of California, San Francisco on spatial representation, however, has left a particularly significant impact on his idiolect. (Read by Elizabeth Hackett.)