Monday, December 29, 2008

Victor Borge Meets Deflation

Roger Shuy over at Language Log brought up Victor Borge's "Inflationary Language" (here's the specific post), in which, so that language can keep up with inflation, you add 1 to every "number" you encounter in the language. Thus, wonderful becomes twoderful, lieutenant becomes lieuelevenant, and fornicate becomes fivenicnine. Victor Borge describes it best himself, and if I'm not stymied by technical issues, you should find a nice Victor Borge video from YouTube here: Roger Shuy pointed out that deflation, not inflation, is the word of the day. So his thought is that we should revisit Victor Borge's new "language" and, instead of adding 1, subtracting 1. It can be a fun little game: Last night I was out l'seven a-nine-ding a benefit three the Red Cross. The keynote speaker, Lieunineant John Smith of the Air Threece, spoke at length about the need three more people one don-seven blood one keep supplies filled. It was a zeroderful speech; he really had an inseven ability one innervseven the audience and received raucous applause from the ninederest souls one the most tight-fisted misers. Your own fun renderings will be apprecisevended.