A big change is coming for everyone who speaks English - one that will make the task of communicating a little easier. This week, The Ministry of Mediocrity handed down a decree that will reduce the entire English language to 140 words.

"We need to shrink communication down to size", said Minister of Mediocrity Calvin Gork. "All those synonyms, metaphors, abstractions, and all that long-winded poetic gobble-de-goop will be eradicated. Citizens will enjoy a leaner, cleaner language without all the clutter."

Besides cutting down on 'unnecessary' vocabulary, the Ministry is also cutting back on 'unwanted' letters from cumbersome words, such as vowels, and extra consonants. The new law, known as "Skinny English", is being enthusiastically* accepted by the current generation of texters tweeters and bloggers.

"I'm like, OMG! Who needs so mny wrds?" said avid twitterhead Stacy Honk. "I only knoe like 50 or 60 wrds anyway, so I gtta learn some new ones to get up to 140 lol!"

The first casualties of the English language will be all words with foreign origins, double meaning, and nuance. The next phase will be the removal of all words more than ten letters long. Direct and indirect articles, adverbs and pronouns are scheduled for removal next spring.

"Adjectives will be completely gone by the end of the year!" exclaimed Deputy Minister Raul Corvette. "And all those silly words for things like spices, emotions, and colors? Buh-bye!"

The result will be a society completely liberated from complex thought. Every song will have the same lyric. Every movie will have the same script. "Skinny English is like an extreme diet for your brain", said anti-intellectual Cleb Goggins. "Once we reduce English to 140 words, there will no longer be such irritating problems as dissent, curiosity, irony or ethnic food."

The few nouns allowed to remain in the vocabulary will pertain to breasts, genitals, chili fries, hot wings, video game characters, sports figures and oversized trucks. All emotions will be expressed by only two words: 'hot' and 'meh'.

Persons refusing to speak Skinny English will be fined $175 for every spoken word that is not part of the officially approved 140. "Preposterous! Unconscionable!" exclaimed Professor Theodore Poindexter. "No one is going to muzzle me! The very foundation of civilization rests on a diverse and wide ranging vocabulary!" Poindexter is now serving 20 years in thinkers' prison.

Actually, The Ministry of Mediocrity will be allowing for some expansion to the written form of the language. "Apostrophe's can be inserted anywhere, for no reason", explained Skinny English expert Stew Forbrains. So in the absence of thought, there will still be needless punctuation marks.

Eventually the human brain will adapt to the 140-word language. "Me like things faster easier", said dumbed-down citizen Steve Bibbins. "Hot lolz." But this is only a stepping stone. The Minister of Mediocrity envisions a world with no language at all. "Hey, barnacles can do it. Why can't we?"

* 'enthusiastically' constitutes a multiple offense - being full of syllables,
and lots of hard to remember letters.

Anti News ©2014 Chris Hume