This will go on your permanent record

Julie, Jason and I were waiting for Minority Report to start at the IMAX theater. I’m having one of those moments where everything seems to connect and pretty soon I’m blabbering about linguistics…

In one of those delusional and excited moments I’m talking really fast…“You know the way you comprehend the world, the very ideas that you are allowed to think come out of the words you know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you understood word formation so you could create your own words to capture new and original ideas?” Strictly one of those shallow notions that bounces off the scar tissue I call a brain and out my mouth. But it sets me on a tear…

In the theater the usher commands everyone to move towards the center and sit next to people. Then I really start waxing on about the power of words to make people do things. “Just think if you understood word formation, grammar and all the pieces of linguistics you could command things to happen. It would be like casting magic spells.” At this point I don’t even know if other people are even around me as I’m lapsing into a linguistic feedback loop…ideas looping out my mouth and in my ears and back out again with slight modifications. I’m probably stuttering at this point.

Then the bullshit really starts flying…“Yeah I bet that’s why we don’t have spells anymore. Back in the old days when they had sorcery they were also creating our languages. Those folks knew more about linguistics than we do now because it was so much more fluid and dynamic. We write things down now. It’s recorded semi-permanently. Language can’t evolve as readily as it used to. Heck we even have literacy programs to stifle development. So you see sorcery and magic are what we nowadays call linguistics.”

Who is with me on this one? I need an army of illiterates to create the magic words. Together we will fulfill my ninth grade ambition of taking over North and South America.

Thus concludes my review of Minority Report.

(I kinda think I might have seemed a little “touched in the head” to Jason. This was the first time I’d ever met him.) 1000x No! - Pop Will Eat Itself - Cure For Sanity playful