How reliable are all those stories about the number of Eskimo words for snow? How can lamps, flags, and parrots be libelous? How might Star Trek's Commander Spock react to Noam Chomsky's theories of language? These and many other odd questions are typical topics in this collection of essays that present an occasionally zany, oftenwry, but always fascinating look at language and the people who study it.

Geoffrey K. Pullum's writings began as columns in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory in 1983. For six years, in almost every issue, under the banner "TOPIC. . .COMMENT," he published a captivating mélange of commentary, criticism, satire, whimsy, and fiction. Those columns are reproduced herealmost exactly as his friends and colleagues originally warned him not to publish themalong with new material including a foreword by James D. McCawley, a prologue, and a new introduction to each of these clever pieces. Whether making a sneak attack on some sacred cow, delivering a tongue-in-cheek protest against current standards, or supplying a caustic review of some recent development, Pullum remains in touch with serious concerns about language and society. At the same time, he reminds the reader not to take linguistics too seriously all of the time.

Pullum will take you on an excursion into the wild and untamed fringes of linguistics. Among the unusual encounters in store are a conversation between Star Trek's Commander Spock and three real earth linguists, the strange tale of the author's imprisonment for embezzling funds from the Campaign for Typographical Freedom, a harrowing account of a day in the research life of four unhappy grammarians, and the true story of how a monograph on syntax was suppressed because the examples were judged to be libelous. You will also find a volley of humorous broadsides aimed at dishonest attributional practices, meddlesome copy editors, mathematical incompetence, and "cracker-barrel philosophy of science." These learned and witty pieces will delight anyone who is fascinated by the quirks of language and linguists.

Geoffrey K. Pullum is professor of linguistics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Foreword, by James D. McCawley 

1. Prologue: The TOPIC... COMMENT column  

Part I - Fashions and Tendencies

2. Watch out for the current        

3. The stranger in the bar    

4. If it's Tuesday, this must be glossematics 

5. The conduct of Linguistic Inquiry 

6. Chomsky on the Enterprise       

7. Formal linguistics meets the Boojum    

Part II - Publication and Damnation

8. Stalking the perfect journal   

9. Punctuation and human freedom             

10. A guest of the State                       

11. Seven deadly sins in journal publishing     

12. The linguistics of defamation               

13. Trench-mouth comes to Trumpington Street   

14. Here come the linguistic fascists           

Part III - Unscientific Behavior

15. The revenge of the methodological moaners     

16. Footloose and context-free                   

17. Nobody goes around at LSA meetings offering odds 

18. Citation etiquette beyond Thunderdome         

19. The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax             

Part IV - Linguistic Fantasies

20. No trips to Stockholm                 

21. A memo from the Vice Chancellor        

22. Some lists of things about books         

23. The incident of the node vortex problem  

24. Epilogue: The final curtain               

Appendix: Original publication details

and acknowledgments                 

Index