It turns out that it is part of a blog that actually has an entire series of entries about linguistics in SF!
This includes a bit about Steven Brust's "The Phoenix Guards", specifically, the Fordfordfordford ford :)
There's also a lot of random non SF-related language stuff, such as this post on the new radiation hazard sign. I think the criticism of it is a bit unwarranted, but the alternate interpretations of the sign down in the comments are very amusing .
A couple other posts on the blog led me to wikipedia's list of collective nouns, some of which are rather dumbfounding. "A flange of baboons"? "A lap of cod"? (ewww!) "An outcrop of geologists"? Given that it's wikipedia i kind of wonder if perhaps some of them were made up as pranks, but all the ones i've tried googling so far seem to have at least some corroborating evidence (except for the geologist one =)
I especially like "a destruction of cats" though :)