December 6, 2006
CYBERSPACE -- In an unprecedented use of its power, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has added capital letters to its list of endangered species.
"You should just see the emails and instant messages I have received," said Andrew B. Cummings of the government agency, "The capital letters have all been slaughtered as the result of carelessness."
The addition to the list was applauded by the Militant Grammarians, a group that lobbied extensively for the change.
"If we don't protect capital letters, who will?" said Will Wordsworth, president of the group. He added, "As users of the English language, we have a responsibility to protect it, and when I say 'English', I mean English with a capital 'E'!"
"The increasing laxity of such uses has a toxic effect on our children's developing intellects," said V. Wolfe of capital letters. She continued, "The language is polluted. People carelessly circulate misspellings and mistakes, with wanton disregard for the linguistic environment and the time the reader must invest to interpret the message. What will come out of our grandchildren's mouths? We are obligated to leave the language as pristine as we found it. In other words, I am fucking sick of wasting my time trying to read this shit."
A proponent of the new Abbreviated English, or "abb eng" as it is called, is Nan Writecrot, who may or may not have declined to be interviewed for this article. The most recent text message received from her reads "btw bck tomm dwntwn 2 c u," the meaning of which is undetermined as of this writing. Writecot could not be reached for clarification.
"i just don't understand y i cant rite lik evryone dose," wrote the executive Mary Mispel in an interview conducted via instant messaging. "my ass understand what i rite so y cant othr peeps so not cool...."
Cummings of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to respond such criticisms, because he simply does not know what any of his detractors are trying to say.
The lack of capitalization can often lead to some serious mishaps.
Jack Jones, a magazine editor, once missed a date because the name of the venue was not properly conveyed. "She wrote 'the boat,' so I thought maybe she had a yacht or something. It turns out that she was talking about a dive bar in Brooklyn simply named 'the Boat,'" he wrote in an unusually articulate email message. "I ended up on a wharf in Red Hook while she was doing shots at the bar. She got drunk and left with someone else. That was the end of that! I still receive occasional text messages from her, but I just can't figure out what she wants," he concluded bitterly.
reported in jest by John Eischeid
