Pspelling Rewls by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

One of the first things that Ernie the electronic earwig considered doing after creating psecret psociety – the meta-real storybook playground featured on facebook – in 2010 (after Café 23 metaphorically burned to the unsound ground) was creating our own written language. Crazy idea, I know.

Well, we were still going to type in English; we were just going to alter the spelling of certain words. We knew that some would say it was just a goony gimmick. We anticipated this and sharpened our salient hooks.

First up, the only suggestion that got unanimous approval: lead off all words that begin with an s with a silent p. For example, science would be spelled pscience and the word spelling would become hyper-correct as pspelling. Psychology would not become ppsychology, though. We figured a double silent p would be a bit much, even for our motley mental lot.

I will now enumerate some spelling proposals – in chronological order just like they had calendar eyes – that failed to get etched in stone. Some got a majority of support, only to be quashed by a lone veto (which any agent could secretly and anonymously submit). In such case, agents were still welcome to use these unapproved and non-promulgated spelling patterns in the name of merry linguistic mayhem. (Agent 14 has proved to be a first-order master at this.)

Well, the proposal that I, Agent 33, promptly submitted to the ear room, as we fondly call Ernie’s micro-office, was to spell words ending with or containing ool and ule as ewl. For example, let’s use this capricious sentence: Charlene, one cool magical lady with a new smartphone from the changing city, saw the foolish schoolboy eat a crimson toadstool.

When we combine the official silent p rule with the non-official ewl rule we arrive at: Charlene, one cewl magical lady with a new psmartphone from the changing city, psaw the fewlish pschewlboy eat a crimson toadstewl.

Next, there was a radical suggestion to do away with the letter c altogether. Startling, I know. A hard c would be spelled with a k; a soft c, with an s. The hard ch digraph (as in march) would be spelled with a strikethrough of a leading brace: {. Über-zany.

Additionally, the soft ch digraph (as in chandelier) would become sh. The ck digraph (as in kick) would be spelled kk. The cl and cr digraphs would become kl and kr, respectively. And, finally, the trigraphs sch and chl would become sk and kl, respectively and respectfully.   

When Charlie got wind of this extreme notion, he blew up our cell phones. Hey agents, please kill this worthless nonsense. I don’t want to become {arlie or {ukk. It’s a krap proposal. Dit{ it.

I read it twice. All I could think was: Strange how he went on to use the { in his rant. And, wow, his phone can do strikethroughs of text. Charlie must be one of Ernie’s pet agents, always getting the best gadgets first.

When we carefully conjoin the official silent p rule with our two non-official spelling rules, our test-case sentence becomes: Psharlene, one kewl magikal lady with a new psmartphone from the {anging sity, psaw the fewlish pskewlboy eat a krimson toadstewl.

Another idea floated by one of our outstanding overseas agents was the reversal of f and ph. Thus, the new fase is phantastic. Phiscal and fysical health are of phoremost importance. Pheeble Foebe pheels phaint phrom flebitis.

And, when we add this f/ph swap to our increasingly strange sentence, we get: Psharlene, one kewl magikal lady with a new psmartfone phrom the {anging psity, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat a krimson toadstewl.

Are we done yet? No whey! (Sorry, this is the cliché of a pun that keeps giving.) Plenty more milk of human kindness as well as from a cow’s sorrow. Ok, setting aside the old rites for the newly installed rongs, [sic] yet another idea was offered by a female agent – one who said that she always hated seeing words end in y, ever since elementary school.

She offered to all of us fine and refined agents an earnest invitation to change all words ending in the sometimes-vowel y to an ie ending; that is, well, the same sound. Hence, we see: Yesterdaie, lovelie ladie Marie laie quietlie.

And now, if you combine this latest proposed spelling rule with the previous ones, our quickly-fading-away-from-legible-English sentence becomes: Psharlene, one kewl magikal ladie with a new psmartfone phrom the {anging psitie, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat a krimson toadstewl.

But wait, there’s more! (Read it like in the tone of a late-night TV commercial barker.) Another clever agent wanted each and every lone indefinite article a to be spelled eigh. He stated that if this four-letter combination was good enough for a long a sound in eight, then it was definitely good enough for all indefinite a’s in our typography. 

And thus, our fabulously forlorn (Have I used that phrase somewhere? Must check valve later.) sentence is now: Psharlene, one kewl magikal ladie with eigh new psmartfone phrom the {anging psitie, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat eigh krimson toadstewl.

Fred wanted a w placed in front of one and once for phonetic reasons. Done. Psharlene, wone kewl magikal ladie with eigh new psmartfone phrom the {anging psitie, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat eigh krimson toadstewl.  

Penultimately [sic] (mercifully, we’re almost done), a senior male agent demanded that j replace the letter g when the true sound was that of the letter j. He was tired of j being ripped off by g. It was trajic how long this error had gone on.

With this addition, our demonstrably demented sentence is now: Psharlene, wone kewl majikal ladie with eigh new psmartfone phrom the {anging psitie, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat eigh krimson toadstewl. 

Last, but by no means in the least, a younger female agent suggested that the word new be replaced with the animalistic homophone gnu. I asked her what led her to this particular word-switch idea and she texted back: It has a silent g and all the cool kids text nu for new on their cell phones.

I’m a bit of an old, stuck-in-my-ruts, plodding goat now, and I can only guess what’s hip these days in youth culture. Thus, I didn’t veto her motion; I forwarded it to Ernie and the other agents. However, one of them torpedoed it. Not sure who it was.

Well, anyway, combining the one official cardinal spelling rule (The silent p in front of words beginning with the letter s. Remember that one? If you forget that one, I don’t even know if a special variance could get you past the wrought iron E gates.) with the eight unofficial ones, our highly hypothetical sentence has finally become: Psharlene, wone kewl majikal ladie with eigh gnu psmartfone phrom the {anging psitie, psaw the phewlish pskewlboy eat eigh krimson toadstewl. 

If you now have a headache, my sincerest apologies. If you just got dizzy and upchucked your lunch, send Ernie the bill. He’s good for it. Maybe.

And, what did our electronic earwig ringleader think? Well, sans sugarcoating, Ernie was furious with this combination of proposed rules, as he claimed to have spent thousands of dollars on merchandise with the psecret psociety logo on it. He mass-texted all of us, stating: If we change to psekret psocietie, we lose all kredibilitie! 

The thing that struck me about his text was that he spelled credibility with a k and ie. Maybe Ernie had some Teutonic blood circulating through his barely functioning antennae.

Personally, I liked all of the submitted spelling suggestions. Hey, the more the merrier. The further out of bounds, the better. Just don’t have conflicting rules. Strikethrough that. Conflicting rules can fly, too. High.

Now, pass me that flask of whiskey. Or, is it whisky today?

Some bitter detractor said that we just want to look like some esoteric group (even though we’re not) like the Illuminati, Free Masons, Ordo Templis Orientis, or something equally obscure.

Illuminati? We’ve already got cases of LED lamps for our dank dungeon. We’re all good to go. Knowhere [sic] of/on course.

Ok, who stole my granules? That darn earwig gets into everything. If it isn’t sealed tight, he’s ravaging the contents. I’m truly amazed that his microchip hasn’t shorted out yet. Modern wonders.

Now it’s assignment time. Should you be really bored, or very curious, using the spelling rules discussed, convert the last paragraph (which is from a short story by yours truly) to psecret psociety spelling and post on the facebook page.

And, before leaving, feel free to join in the meta-madness. We need people like you. To do something. What? We’ll figure that out later. Well, you could propose another spelling rule. Oops, here comes the boss. Luck be good!

|| Exercise 091515 [excerpted from Airported To Knowhere] I retreated back towards the airport’s main concourse in a state of shock. I rounded the corner and I was back in the 21st century once again. It was the same September day in 2010, just two and a half minutes later. What the hell was that back there? Is a portion of that corner a wormhole? Or, have I lost my mind? Did someone put something in my coffee at Starbucks this morning? Or, did I? No, I’m out of those ‘granules de grandeur’ now. Maybe a flashback? If so, I hope there are no more. Well, not for a while. I don’t want to flip out on that long trans-Pacific flight.