Culture: Language: Word
The book to end all words   (+1, -4)  [vote for, against]
Verbalpieces Flavorationing

Politicians, rappers, trek heads and drug companies go out of their way to coin new words. They combine two different roots, make it plural and WHAM!! a new word! The book to end all words would have a dedicated meaning for all the parts of words. They would be arranged in every order possible so no other words could be created. Then dedicated meanings would be spelled out in every possible fashion thus completing language and all new words. Then when the rapping politician receiving kickbacks from the pharmaceuticals industry tries to expound on his newly vernacular, someone in his audience can hold up the book and correct him/her.
-- em-tae, May 06 2002

"The rapping politician" http://us.imdb.com/Title?0118798
[calum, May 06 2002]

(?) The Nine Billion Names of God http://www.geocitie...ces/namesofgod.html
Wow. The entire short story by Arthur C. Clarke. Posting it on a Geocities site *can't* be legal. [bristolz, May 07 2002]

(?) Evilbunny http://www.geocities.com/aicase
Has anyone ever read Finnegan's Wake? [Evilbunny, Oct 04 2004]

The drug companies would rush to patent all the new words and earn royalties on their use.
-- FarmerJohn, May 06 2002


This book would be the book to end all forests.

The OED has 291,500 entries, and consumes 21,730 pages. You work out how many pages it would take for 291,500 factorial entries.

Besides, this concept is partially baked by the German language.
-- beauxeault, May 06 2002


...and what a beautiful langauge it is.
-- calum, May 06 2002


The Nine Billion Names of God
-- bristolz, May 06 2002


There are nine billion ways to take the name of the Lord in vain? Jesus Christ!
-- jester, May 07 2002


If you were shooting, [brettjs] not only would you have missed the target but the backstop as well and perhaps the entire far end of the range.
-- bristolz, May 07 2002


Hah! That's wonderful.
-- bristolz, May 07 2002


Yes, and yes, he does.
-- bristolz, May 07 2002


Bristolz- The Nine million names of god was an Incredible idea, But was the calculation off? The 3 letter in succession rule throws everything off so AAAAAAAAA can not exist, nor does AAAA, or AAABAAAAB for example. I dont come up with that many names.
-- em-tae, May 07 2002


Jesus H. Christ!
-- thumbwax, May 07 2002


Eight million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight to go.
-- jester, May 08 2002


You're only off by three orders of magnitude, [brettjs]. That'd be eight billion, nine hundred ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight.
-- bristolz, May 08 2002


Such an idea could only be proposed by someone who has absolutely no concept of the dynamics of language. And [beauxeault] above is as wrong as the author. Ending all forests is not the problem with this idea. The evolution of language is constant. Fishbonerized. Flibberfishybonioned. Ichthyoskeletonized.
-- globaltourniquet, May 08 2002


(Globalfishead), yes, that would be a, Bla Bla Bla an the concept Icthyoskeletonized. I see you as a skeleton too. Would not that be better said as distalocularskeletation, or "Sakana-ho-hone, Sensei?" I guess I do have a good grasp on language.

The evolution of language does exist, and in fact meters the ability for old and cross-referenced words to take on new meanings. But in fact new parts of speech do not change and are as solid as the core of human intelligence stemming from the experience that they are based on, as is the foundation of this idea and only change as new ideas are formed. Auto - Yes, dedicated meaning Automatic - Yes, dedicated meaning Automanic – No meaning but could have one. Self-excited, or car-weird! No meaning yet, unless you speak some form of bones that the rest of the world don’t. but that is not evolution, it is finishing. So would new sounds, if you had the ability to create them.
-- em-tae, May 09 2002


[bz]: <blushes> I figured, "Hey, those numbers at the end are the least significant. Might as well toss 'em."
-- jester, May 09 2002


The problem is that it was the most significant numbers you tossed.
-- bristolz, May 20 2002


(Hence the irony stemming from the dual meaning of "end" in this case)
-- jester, May 20 2002


//Politicians, rappers, trek heads and drug companies//
Coincidentally, perhaps the four most annoying groups of people.
-- angel, May 20 2002


Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel." The library in this story contains all possible combinations of letters and therefore contains all books that have ever been and ever will be written. The library is infinite and, to its inhabitants, indistinguishable from the universe.
-- jacksheet, Feb 08 2004



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