Monday, June 28, 2010

Improve the English Language

English is kind of a bastard language. Probably because the home island kept getting invaded: Romans, Saxons, Vikings; they even lost to a bunch of French. English now has words from all of these different language groups. This can make spelling difficult, but it also means English has a lot of flexibility.

Americans have already greatly improved the English language, by showing you can speak it without sounding like a pansy. That is no reason to stop the improvement, though. English adds a lot of words. These often involve new technology, but also includes words from other languages. Especially Mexican.

Despite this, more can be done. There are still some words that the English language lacks. My biggest gripe with English is "it". You see, "it" is not used to describe humans, even if you don't know a person's gender. Instead, we use "them", which doesn't make sense when talking about a single person.

This annoys the hell out of me. We use both "it" and "them" (and their possessive forms) when talking about inanimate objects and animals, but only "them" when talking about people. Some examples. I tell the guy sitting next to me: "Get some use out of your douche-pad, and throw it at that classhole." I use "it" for a single inanimate object. I could also say: "Quick take these Adderall and hide them before the police get here." I use "them" for multiple inanimate objects. The same goes for multiple people: "Those people are ugly; get them the hell out of my club." But it is different for a single person. I cannot say: "That person looks ugly; don't let it in." I have to say: "Don't let them in." It is even worse in hypos: "Think of the perfect leader, what qualities would it have." Again, you have to say "they", or the much longer "he or she". Well, maybe this is a bad example, we all know the perfect leader is a man, but you get the idea.

As you can probably see, I think the best solution is to just use "it" for people. But there is a lot of resistance to this. Some people may even find it offensive. So I think creating a new word is the way to go. I recommend "se", pronounced the same as "he" or "she". It is short, easy, and similar to its fellow pronouns. It can be changed to "ses" when you would use "his" or "hers" for a specific gender, the same way we change "it" to "its".

This is a pet peeve of mine, but there are some other words that should be added. We love lists here at Stuff, so here is a non-exclusive one:

1. Se: See above.

2. Leen: n. This is a "legal teen". Someone who is still in ses teens, but who you can now legally take advantage of when drunk. In the majority of cases, this is 18-19, but apparently falls all the way to 16 in some states.

3. Borance: n. This is a trance you go into when extremely bored. You may experience this when your significant other starts telling an incredibly boring and irrelevant story. In these cases, the borance usually ends when se asks a question, then gets mad when se realizes you have no idea what is going on. You can see a lot of borances in a Barbri class.

4. Blark: v. This is when you block someone's attempt at a snarky comment. Ex.: "He totally blarked you. Snark denied."

5. Twong: n. Technically wrong. This is the irrelevant triviality that a person you are arguing with, or some dbag who is listening, raises to try to negate the point you made. The irrelevant point makes your point twong, but doesn't actually help your opponent. You just have to change your wording a bit, and you can make the same point. In law school, this is sometimes called "fighting the hypo". Twong is much more efficient.

6. Woops. n. When your really wet fart leaves something behind.

Here are some more ideas. Comment if you have others.

What about other languages, you ask? F that. Y'all should learn English.

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