Review of Pulju’s An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the History of Linguistics: Past, Present, Future

Summary: Review of Pulju’s An Optimality-Theoretic Account of the History of Linguistics: Past, Present, Future; by TJP, Lecturer in Linguistics and Classics, Dartmouth College; From Volume CLI, Number 2 of Speculative Grammarian, April 2006. — It is a great sorrow to those of us who remember the glory days of Psammeticus Press—those fabled days when it was the leading linguistics publisher in the world—nay, what is more, in the entire history of the world—it is, I repeat, a great sorrow to us to witness the depths to which the beloved imprint has sunk with the publication of this lamentable volume. What could have possessed PsPress’s current chairman K. Winnipesaukee Slater III, a meek man, to be sure, and mild, but still a reputable scholar, and not, so far as we know, entirely devoid of common sense nor of the finer aesthetic feelings, to defile his company’s good name by foisting upon an unsuspecting public this lunatic political screed thinly disguised as a bit of historico-linguistic scholarship? (Read by Joey Whitford.)