George Bush Declares New Standards for National Language
February 3, 2003, the Oval Office. From his presidential desk, behind the usual stack of toy cowboys, Indians, soldiers, and tanks, Mr. Bush issued an edict to update the American English language according to his own image and likes. “This movement was pushed by reactions to my State of the Yew-onion address I gave the other day. Don’t think that I don’t break wind of what you people say about me behind my other half,” Mr. Bush said, pointing a finger at members of the press. “That kind of misrespect has no place in a post-9/11 Mur’ka, and I expect each and every all of you to play their part and show the world that this great nation are of one heart and one mind. This country and language is what I make of it, not you. So, from now on, there will be some changes I think you’ll agree are all overdo.”
After pausing to ensure that he had the full attention of those present, Mr. Bush began to outline the modifications he envisioned for the language of the “most powerful nation unearthed.” “One, we gotta get rid of that dang apo … apostro … apostro-what?” “Apostrophe, sir,” whispered an aide standing off to Mr. Bush’s side. “Yeah, that stupid thing. Point is, we’re gonna get rid of it. Nobody needs ‘em, nobody uses ‘em, so why bother. And you fur’ners with an apostro-thingie in your names, take it out. This Administration has coddled you long enough. Get a decent Mur’kin name already, for God’s sake, dammit. And it better be short and sweet and easy to spell. Like ‘Bush.’ Yeah, that’s it—all of you unwashed massives with weird fur’n names all change your name to ‘Bush.’ This is a good easy way to help your country, and I’m sure everybody can live with that.
“Speaking of apostro-whatzits, that goes for poss … poss … what’s that word?” Mr. Bush glanced inquisitively at his aide, who had been looking on. “Possessive, sir,” the aide whispered in reply. “I got it: poss-essive. From now on, no more special spelling or whatnot for possessives. Now, I know that this is gonna mean big changes for a lot of you, so I’ll give you six months grace. During that time, if you wanna make a word possessive, you can just stick an apostro-doolie after it just like you do now—like Fred’ car or Bobby’ baseball bat or Saddam’ weapons of mass destruction. Since many of you were all taught that, to make a word plural, you hafta stick a catastrophe-ass on the end, you can also continue to use ‘it’s’ as the possessive of ‘it’ during the grace period. But, after that, I want those apostrotease out of my face. The same goes for semi-what?” he asked in an aside to the aide, “Semicolons? What in the bojangles name of erudition is a semicolon? Oh, you mean the period riding piggyback on the comma. And it’s supposed to be used for what? Joining two independent … oh, putting two sentences together to make one compound sentence … are you sure about that? That’s crazy talk—I never heard of such a thing!” Turning away from the aide to address the audience, Mr. Bush resumed, “Well, since I don’t know what a semicolon is supposed to be used for, it’s safe to assume that nobody else does neither. Heck, when I want to join two sentences together, I just stick a comma between ‘em and that’s good enough for me. If it’s good enough for George Dubya Bush, then it’s good enough for the rest of you out there, so I don’t ever want to see another Mur’kin ever using a semicolon ever again. Got it? Good!
“And an udder thing, I don’t want to hear anybody using lee-wards. You know, careful-lee, quiet-lee. Lee-wards. If a word is good enough to modify a noun, then it had damn well better be good enough to modify verbs and everything else, too. And to-wards—you know how those crotchety old-fashioned teachers say not to split to-wards? You know, ‘to go,’ ‘to swim,’ and them? Well, now that I’m in office, if you want ‘to boldly split’ to-wards, be my guest. That’ll make your life easier than a pig in a poke, I tell you what. Not only that, but I hereby give all Mur’kins the right to spell and or pronounce any word however they see fit and to put capital letters wherever they want and to put commas and periods and colons and semi-trucks and them little quote thingies—single, double, there’s no difference so it don’t matter none to me—wherever they want. You want to put commas after the subject of the sentence, like, ‘Fred, went shopping’? Go for it! Wanna stick commas and periods outside quotation marks? Have at it—I promise you won’t get points marked off your paper. You want to stick a colon in right after a verb like ‘is,’ ‘are,’ or ‘include’? If it feels good, do it. Plurals? Screw ‘em! If you never learned the correct, God-given usages like ‘there is twenty of’ or ‘there are a number of,’ then just stick a number by the word and let people figure it out for themself however many it is of whatever it is you mean. Hang them dangling participles, too: if you wanna say, ‘While at the store shopping, the apple fell on her foot,’ then go right ahead—that is the correct usage, after all. So is ‘between you and I.’ It’s all good. While we’re at it, screw conjugals, too—as long as I’m in office, I plan to just make the present tense all the time, and I’m gonna make the future tense by making the present tense. If I can, then, by jingo, you can too. Stick a time nearby if you’re afraid people won’t know what you’re talking about. Like this: I be, you be, he be, she be, it be, we be, you be, they be, yesterday, today, tomorrow, two weeks from now. See how easy that is? You baby-boomers—remember all those silly rules they taught you in school? Well, chunk ‘em in the ashcan—that is, if you haven’t already followed in the intellectual footsteps of my personal friend Ronnie Reagan. Do what you want! The language is your plaything just as the country—the world—is mine. The point is, rules they teach in school doesn’t matter. From now on, the only rules that matter here are MY rules. And don’t you forget it!
“Last, I want to go on the record and say that the one and only correct, true, and proper pronunciation of my favorite non-conventional, biological, or chemical weapon is ‘nuke-yew-ler.’ I’ll say it again: ‘NUKE-yew-ler.’ The next blame-idjit-fool what tries to correct me again is getting airlifted straight to Guantanamo Bay, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Don’t piss me off on this, folks, I mean it.
“So, that’s it, folks: my vision for the new official Mur’kin language. My buddy Johnny Ashcroft likes it because language helps shape thought, and his theory is that you can dumb down the people if you dumb down their language, but it’s no great stretch to dumb down the Mur’kin language anyway because of all the help we are already getting from all of you—we’re just taking the mandate you already gave us and making it official. But I digress. The point is, not only will my new vision of the Mur’kin language make every citizen’s life easier, but it will also help each and every school age children learn as well as it’s pee-ers. If we all do our parts and don’t set a bad example by education, every Mur’kin can make sure that each and every child in the Yew-knighted States is left behind.”
