Language Is Dead

Well, the great thought-experiment of human language has finally come to an end. What were the findings? Well, apparently that "w00t" is a word. Yup, the nonsensical outburst has officially been named a word by that crotchety, schnapps-ridden old bag Miriam Webster.

Merriam-Webster. Whatevs!

The "word" "w00t" comes from something called "l33t" or "leet" that is some sort of computer nerd beep boop beep that is spoken in San Diego every summer, for four days. Though, apparently "woot" has also been used in the film Pretty Woman, when that grizzled old hooker in the fancy new clothes pumps her fist around and says "Woot, woot, woot!" But that doesn't really count or make sense. Isn't that what Aresenio used to say? He definitely was not using zeroes for o's. So I don't think they're the same thing.

What this essentially means is that computers have taken over the world and we will soon speak (if we are alive at all) in a series of whirs, hums, and clicks that somehow denote zeros and ones. By then the world will have mostly ended (not with a bang but with a w00t), the Earth will be cold and bleak, the Megalopolis of Bosnewwashtimore will have either been lost to the briny depths of the ever-encroaching Atlantic, or blasted out and ash-covered, an odd zombie or two scavenging for scarce fleshy remains of the East Coast elite.

The surviving world will dream at night, after a long, hard day's worth of toiling at their robot masters' feet. They will dream of fields and meadows, hill and dale, the guttural grunts and feints of German, the smooth nasal of French, the braying, mule-like intonations of American English. Their dreams will sour as they remember that it was these very Americans who first brought them these hideous "leet" words. But then they will remember that we Americans went first, crushed under the weight of our own deep fried computer boxes. A smile will cross these survivors' dreamy, grimy faces. For that small blessing they will whisper a single word, sending it out into the cold, toxic night air.

A soft, lilting "woohoo!"

Pray for us.

Webster's Word of 2007

End Times

I’m almost done with Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and I’m finding it at turns both terrifying and oddly lulling. I’m not all that into the spare prose, and “boy book”-ness of the thing, but the post-apocalyptic setting really nags at me. In a good way. I guess in general I’ve just acquired a strange fascination with the idea of a the world after it ends, who and what is still around, what everything looks like, how things march on. I felt the same about Children of Men (maybe my favorite movie ever), and almost wanted to see Resident Evil: Extinction for its depiction of a deserted (literally) Las Vegas. For that matter, pretty much every zombie movie hooks me and terrifies me and makes me think about things I don’t want to (but kind of do?). An especially great one is the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Not so powerful and artsy as 28 Days Later, but absolutely horrifying in its far bleaker ending.

Why on earth am I so drawn to the End of the World genre, especially those featuring zombism? I really have no idea. I suppose the argument could be made that it’s some subconscious reaction to the post-“Rudy Giuliani Presents: 9/11” world, and that I’m just steeling myself for what I think the future might hold. Or, maybe they comfort me because I can sit back and say “Nah, that’d never happen.” Yeah. Maybe that’s it. I get comfort from zombie/apocalypse movies. That must explain why, a few years ago, I had zombie contingency plans all mapped out in my head and read Max Brooks’ “The Ultimate Zombie Survival Guide” completely unironically, several times.

Sigh. Anyway, I’m going to go grab a bite.

(Get it?)