New Alphabet Part II- The rest

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a brilliant essay on my plans for a new alphabet.  It was new, fresh, and invigorating.  I don't know if anyone actually read it (besides Amanda)...but rest assured, it took the world by storm.  And then I went away, leaving everyone breathless on the edge of their seats.

Now I have returned to finish my work.  Like Anakin brought balance to the Force, I will bring balance to the alphabet.  Even if that means I have to kill some of it and disfigure the rest.

To bring you up to speed, the new alphabet of my creation is so far ABDFGHIKLMN.  The rest of this exercise is elementary, really.  Having taken out the letters 'E' and 'C', no others would dare oppose me.  My logic-flawless.  My execution-deadly precise.  My aim-true.  My grip on reality- slipping.

Today, I'll take O-Z to task.  Which of them will survive to carry on my vision of the English language?  Tune in right now and find out!  Isn't this exciting?  WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT TO DO MORE THAN READ THIS BLOG!!?!??!?

As with before, I'm taking all letter facts from Wikipedia.  And I'm taking all letter commentary from my brain.

Due to a scandal that was recently brought to my attention (thanks TBS), our thumbs up/thumbs down part will be played by legendary lemon Simon Cowell!

Would it kill you to smile, Simon?  Oh.  Oh, it would.  It actually would kill you.  My bad.  Carry on.

Let's get it started!

O- Inspired by the Egyptian hieroglyph for 'eye', and the fourth most common letter- I'd say this is pretty much a no-brainer.  Don't ask why it's a no-brainer.  When someone says "It's a no-brainer", they're really saying that they don't want you to ask any type of question that will expose their lack of knowledge about the subject.  I will say that elimination of 'O' would be to the 'O' face what prohibition was to alcohol.  And we all know how that turned out.

Simon says: Thumbs up

P- According to my friend Wikipedia, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive.  What the what?

Let's break it down
 
There's a lot of stuff going on there.  On one hand, being voiceless is a pretty useless trait in an alphabet whose sole purpose is to represent audible sounds.  It's like a company having a mime as their spokesperson.  But then it's also a bilabial plosive.  No one really knows what that means, but it sounds an awful lot like 'Explosive', and so I'm afraid that if I try to forcibly remove the letter 'P' from the alphabet, it will blow up and take the alphabetical midsection (not to mention my hands) out along with it.  So we're just going to keep 'P' right where it is and just back away...very slow like....

Simon says: Thumbs up

Q- I've been advised by my lawyer not to talk about 'Q', due to 'Q' being a minority letter...and with affirmative action...and the public relations backlash...but why can't I just say that 'Q' doesn't do anything 'K' and 'W'  couldn't do?  I mean, 'Q' can't even go into a word without taking 'U' with it- how weak is that?  You're can't even start off a word without some vowel holding your hand lik....

Pause ten seconds for station indoctrination

(Ten seconds later) I would like to issue a public apology to (do I have to do this?  ZAP Okay, okay., jeez..) the letter 'Q'.  I can only imagine how hard it is to be a (relatively useless and redunda ZAP ow ow ow ow) misunderstood and underutilized letter.  On behalf of the new alphabet, we welcome you into our tolerant and totally non-confrontational society.  Also, thank you for not suing me.  ZAP Hey- what was that for?

Simon says: Thumbs up

R- 'R' is like 'P' with a second leg.  That means that if 'P' is considered to be secure in the new alphabet, then 'R' would have to be like, twice as secure.  Get it?  Because he has a second leg to stand...oh, never mind.


Simon says: Thumbs up

S- Sometimes a place of employment will fire somebody so that they can promote someone else.  Whether it's because they're a better worker, or younger, or cheaper, or cuter, it's a harsh reality of the economic climate.  Animals do the same thing when they purposefully run faster than their older, sicklier third cousin.  It's called The Circle of Life.

That's what 'S' is to me.  There was excess, and I needed to make some cuts.  'C' was the old, sick letter that got taken down by the wolf pack, so I took it and threw it on the ground.  Naturally, 'S' is going to getting a lot more action.  I didn't promote 'S' because of his work ethic/age/letter capital/big booty.  This is all about fat trimming.  Let's just call it what it is- a marriage of convenience- and move on.

Simon says: Thumbs up

T- Ugh.  'T'.  It's just so boring.  No exciting backstory.  No exotic function.  No air flow.  Just frequent, brutal, boring, efficiency.  Well, and its own steak cut.  Maybe if we dressed it up a little bit.  Gave it a couple of griffins as bookends, put a magic wand on the top, like a Voldemort's wand...made it look like a tree...

Nope.  It's still 'T'.  But now it has boobs.  So there's that.

Simon says: Thumbs up


U/V- Details are sketchy, but I'm pretty sure there was some weird sort of incestuous disambiguation going on in the history of 'U' and 'V'.  I think 'U' used to be 'Y'...or was it 'V'?  I don't know.  This stuff is just weird.  It's like leafing through a yearbook from 'The Hills Have Eyes'.

Class of ARRGGHHRRGHHH rulzez!!!!!!!1!!!!

I don't know what kind of kinky crap you guys used to pull back there, but that all ends now.  'U'- you're done.

(Allows a moment for the shock of brutal truth to wear off) How you ask?  Simple.  I'm going to pair 'Y' with two 'O's, or two 'A's for the soft 'U' sound (just think Boston accent).  No-brainer.  Let's move on quickly.

Plus, without 'U' around to emasculate him, maybe 'Q' will man up and finally start doing something productive.  Otherwise there's going to be a 'Q coup'.  And 'V'- shape up, or I'll enlist 'B' to take your place.  And don't think I won't do it, either.  Because I will.

Simon says: U, thumbs down.  V, thumbs up

W- Definitely proof that some weird crap happened between 'U' and 'V'.  How else do you explain a letter that is named "double U" but looks more like "double V"?  Oh well.  I'm keeping it around.  It's good for office morale.  And by 'good for office morale', I mean 'all the other letters can point and laugh and stare at Freakshow'.

Simon says: Thumbs up

X- Oh jeez, this again?  I thought we were done currying favor with the alpha-proletariat.  How much longer can we expect the upper class letters to keep picking up the slack of the bottom class lose....

Pause ten more seconds for station indoctrination

(Lobotomized, with feeling) welcome to the new alphabet mister x

Simon says: thumbs up

Y- 'Y' is one of the cornerstones of a new alphabet.  Its sleek design and bialphality (it's both a consonant and a vowel) makes it trendy and helps us connect with the yuppies.  Its presence in the out-back of the alphabet makes it popular amongst the rebellious outcasts.  Its position as the Rarest IPA Sound by a Letter of the Latin Alphabet makes it sound like an Oscars category.  'Y' is my ace pitcher, my star quarterback, my leading lady- all rolled into one.

Simon says: Thumbs up

Z- Semitic 'Z' represented a weapon.  And what a bad-ass weapon it is.  It's got those two hook things on top and bottom, which can be used to trip an opponent in melee combat, slice open his intestines, or to scale a wall.  It also has the pointed corners, so you can use it in short quarters to stab your foe, like you were using a dagger.  Again, with the brilliant dual-design, if you miss your stroke in one direction, merely double back in the other for a sure severing.  In addition to melee combat, it also has ranged capabilities- much like a Chinese throwing star. Truly the weapon of a dynasty.

Oh.  Were we talking about 'Z' as a letter?  Eh, sure.  Let it in.  It can protect our backsides.

Simon says: Thumbs up

After analyzing the back half of our alphabet, only one letter came off the board.  Perhaps I was feeling generous today.  Maybe the back half of the alphabet is like an untapped natural resource of sound potential.  It's possible my heart just wasn't really in it.  But whatever the reason, our new alphabet is:
ABDFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVWXYZ

ALL HAIL THE NEW ALPHABET!

I'm going to begin a massive Twitter campaign to get the ball rolling.  Because people on Twitter aren't really working with a fully functional alphabet anyways.


PICS- Egg- http://antifraudintl.org/imagehosting/244b29c537e5924.jpg
Simon- http://cbskmvq.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/simon_cowell-thumbs_down.jpg?w=385&h=294
Color bars- http://bagelradio.com/blog/uploaded_images/off+the+air+color+bars-761961.jpg
Letter T- http://www.fromoldbooks.org/DelamotteOrnamentalAlphabets/051-16th-Century-letter-t-q85-468x500.jpg
Sloth- http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/12/4/128728747597485642.jpg

Simon says...how can you eat your pudding if you don't eat your meat?

So here is some really cool random trivia about me...well, it's not random, but it is certainly trivia, and when I come out with a Jason Parks Trivial Pursuit game, this will probably be on one of the cards. Some people might think that my whole existence is a trivial pursuit. I will hunt those people down and taunt them to their faces. Some of them I will be forced to taunt even a second time.

'I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries'

I love learning about human behavior. Ever since I took a sociology class in '07, I've been just absolutely fascinated at how our civilization is built, how society runs, how we learn to be 'human'. I love all the different schools of thought. I love how there is a delicate balance between nature and nurture- how our environments interact with our biology to produce who we are. We are all unique individuals, yet in so many ways we are the same as other people. I'm amazed when I find out 'random' things about other people that I have in common, and I'm amazed that people share some of my idiosyncrasies.

So where am I going with this? Well, it's simple- Sara started to teach Delaney the game 'Simon Says' this past week.


It's a fun game, easy to learn, and it's really cute to watch Delaney say 'Simon says'...and then go through her list of animal noises and face parts. It is adorable.

But it got me thinking...

...Simon Says is not just a kids game- it is a form of social control. Think about it. The kids are all looking to the leader, 'Simon' for behavioral direction. Now 'Simon' does not necessarily have any special qualifications as a leader, but because we are told that he/she is our authority, then we submit to 'Simon' and respond accordingly. We automatically surrender part of our individuality in order to conform to what 'Simon' deems best. Nobody questions who 'Simon' is, or what he/she stands for. We just know that we have to do what Simon says or else we will be out of the game.

It doesn't matter how ridiculous the things are that Simon says. 'Simon says...bang your head on a wall'. 'Simon says slap yourself in the face'. 'Simon says throw yourself into oncoming traffic'. If you do what Simon says, then you are rewarded, and you get to stay in the game. If you stay in it till the end, then you have a chance to be Simon. Otherwise...you have to leave. You're done. Your game existence has been exterminated

So then deviant behavior is punished- conformity is praised. Do what Simon says and you can win...but if you try to do your own thing then you screwed up and you will be ostracized. Kids are learning not to be individual, but to do what everyone else is doing in order to make it to the top- or at least stay on the in.

This might seem silly to some of you, like I'm being overanalytical or something like that. Some of you are probably just so happy to finally have another blog post from me that you don't really care what I'm actually writing about- you're just euphoric. But think about it- we learn all about how to be 'human' at the earliest, most impressionable ages. We learn from what we see and experience in our homes, our schools, and our communities. Not that this is an all-bad thing, and really in some ways, conformity is not bad. We all want our kids to be respectful, law-abiding citizens, and in that sense games like 'Simon Says' can be beneficial. Most of the time there is no need to rock the boat.

Two things though- First of all, we need to teach our children to think critically. That might mean they challenge us and our longly held beliefs, but it will also ensure that our children grow up as their own people, and that their identities and senses of self will be anchored in a knowledge that they have wrestled with the questions of life and come up with their own answers. I know that I want my kids to share my beliefs and values, but I want them to own them. At the end of the day, I want them to really know what they believe, why they believe it, and why what they believe is what makes the most sense.

The second thing is that we need to watch the kind of messages that we are sending our kids, because those sorts of things get ingrained very deeply, and it can be very difficult to dig out of notions of self that become our very definition of self. Our words are very powerful. They should be chosen carefully, and when we screw up (which WILL happen), we show our children our remorse and apologize. In our social work class, we've talked about how everything can be undone but death. Some things, however, are easier undone than others. It is better to lay a foundation of love and encouragement and build upon that than it is to try and uproot pain and lies.

Thanks for reading, I encourage thoughts/feedback. Hopefully we'll meet again soon!

Pics-
Monty Python- http://images.chron.com/blogs/beltwayconfidential/snipshot_monty.jpg
Simon- http://api.ning.com/files/pshYRm07QjZA*lANuZAtbJOHAdQuEb0W*HncOsnGaQM_/simon.jpg