Sunday, April 13, 2008

John Scalzi: Protector Of English, Or Language Luddite?

Twice in the past few days, Mr. Scalzi has expressed his abhorrence at the use of the word alright in place of all right. No, really! He did. Lookee here. And here. He's gone so far as to stoop to the level of all American athletes in claiming that God takes an interest in the outcome of this bitter fight. And that little furry critters would be inconvenienced, annoyed, and generally made uncomfortable if he doesn't get his way in this, his latest cause celebre.

Well, I for one, am not going to knuckle under. I stand firmly for evoluting the language.

Mr. Scalzi's problem seems to be with the idea of leaving out one 'l' and one blank space. In retaliation, I intend to add the 'l' and blank space to other 'al' words. Alabama shall henceforth have the alternate usage of All abama. This may either denote that you are speaking about all of Alabama (not just the cities with populations exceeding 80,000) or something to do with Barack Obama (I'll decide exactly what later.) All acrity will be the words you need to describe the smell of burning rubber anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.

An all arm clock whacks you upside the head if you hit the snooze button more than twice.
All aska obviously describes someone annoyingly curious. All derman is someone who likes skin, but in a civically-minded fashion. All fresco describes a liking for only one diet soda to the exclusion of all others.

And we need not stop at words beginning with an 'a' and a single 'l'. There are a wealth of words with a double 'l' that are open to re-wordifying. I proclaim that all lot beats the crap out of allot. All legory is much stronger. All leviate clearly elevates the word(s) to a higher plane of existence.

Yes, join me in standing up to Scalzi's tyranny. Scalzi can just stay the 'L' out of my use of 'L's. I'm gonna be slingin' em around left and right.

Evolute the language!

11 comments:

Random Michelle K said...

a'right!

Tania said...

I haven't been following the thread over on Whatever, but should we know refer to him as "Scallzi"?

Inquiring minds want to know, since I am the overly curious All Askan.

Nathan said...

Tania,

I think this only applies to words starting with 'al', but if you intend to extend it to include Mr. Scalzi, you also need the added space.

Scall zi. I'm nothing if not consistent.

Tania said...

Point noted!

Anne C. said...

My brother has evoluted us right to the next level -- take out some extra letter, that leave you with:

a'ight

vince said...

All Jezeera, all chemy, all imony, all dressed up and no place to go.

Simon Haynes said...

All so.

Eric said...

Scall zi? Isn't that the name of Superman's uncle on Krypton according to America's Finest #211? Or am I getting that mixed up with the 12th-century Chinese philosopher who wrote The Analytics Of Hamstertry?

Nathan said...

All abaster describes a low cur of a guy. And yes, these things are all so.

Unknown said...

All mighty is a good one, too.

That wordification just rips the meaning to absolute shreds.

:)

Nathan said...

Kate,

If we're gonna star deifying, I'll have to say we're doing this in Alla mode.

And BTW Eric, what is this hamster tree you speak of?