The Dogs of WordWar
The day the new government was elected, the war against wordiness was waged. At 8am the Minister for Alphabetical Economy introduced his Edict Against Rhetoric (EAR). In his inaugural speech the Prime Minister described verbosity as "a far greater threat than obesity. This government will fight crime against consonants, pledge pithiness for paragraphs. Trim talk - the way of the future".
Brevity and clarity became the new buzzwords. A penalty points system was introduced. The newly formed Pontification Police patrolled the streets. Ordinary conversation was limited to two sentences (of maximum 10 word length each) per person per day. Newspapers were reduced to headlines. The Daily Telegraph became the Weekly Word; Sunday Times became the Monthly Minute. Both were reduced to print on a single Post-it.
The standard length for a novel was cut to 50 words. "If a story can't be told in that length then it is suffering seriously from superfluousness," said the Minister for Succinctness. Amid outcries from the Opposition citing double standards in office, he was forced to resign. Becoming the first victim of the government's new tough 'Over-length and overboard' policy he was forced to walk the plank into a sea of waiting paper shredders.
Indiscriminate users of double superlatives were put in the stocks. When all was said and done clichés were no longer tolerated. The English language was castigated as flabby and indulgent. The government ordered its immediate extinction. TrimTalk became the new national language.
Employees practising pertinence were promoted. A one-syllable name policy was introduced for all newborn babies' names. Those parents who defied were tortured and forced to eat large cardboard banners of the offending extra syllable.
Resistance to the new regime grew. Offshore accounts flourished harbouring dictionaries, thesauruses, letters and books. Children's spelling lists were sold on the black market for record amounts. Recordings of traditional songs complete with 57 verses became coveted objects.
Disturbed by its decreasing popularity, the government introduced an authors' amnesty. To avoid public prosecution, offenders were invited to declare invalid their entire collections of adulterous adjectives, vilifying verbs and pretentious prose and gain anonymous absolution. Failure to do so would result in a mandatory sentence of radically restricted ripostes and critically condensed conversation. Those convicted faced a bleak future - subjected to wearing headphones 24 hours a day blasting recorded election speeches where no questions were ever answered and nobody ever got to the point.
Brevity and clarity became the new buzzwords. A penalty points system was introduced. The newly formed Pontification Police patrolled the streets. Ordinary conversation was limited to two sentences (of maximum 10 word length each) per person per day. Newspapers were reduced to headlines. The Daily Telegraph became the Weekly Word; Sunday Times became the Monthly Minute. Both were reduced to print on a single Post-it.
The standard length for a novel was cut to 50 words. "If a story can't be told in that length then it is suffering seriously from superfluousness," said the Minister for Succinctness. Amid outcries from the Opposition citing double standards in office, he was forced to resign. Becoming the first victim of the government's new tough 'Over-length and overboard' policy he was forced to walk the plank into a sea of waiting paper shredders.
Indiscriminate users of double superlatives were put in the stocks. When all was said and done clichés were no longer tolerated. The English language was castigated as flabby and indulgent. The government ordered its immediate extinction. TrimTalk became the new national language.
Employees practising pertinence were promoted. A one-syllable name policy was introduced for all newborn babies' names. Those parents who defied were tortured and forced to eat large cardboard banners of the offending extra syllable.
Resistance to the new regime grew. Offshore accounts flourished harbouring dictionaries, thesauruses, letters and books. Children's spelling lists were sold on the black market for record amounts. Recordings of traditional songs complete with 57 verses became coveted objects.
Disturbed by its decreasing popularity, the government introduced an authors' amnesty. To avoid public prosecution, offenders were invited to declare invalid their entire collections of adulterous adjectives, vilifying verbs and pretentious prose and gain anonymous absolution. Failure to do so would result in a mandatory sentence of radically restricted ripostes and critically condensed conversation. Those convicted faced a bleak future - subjected to wearing headphones 24 hours a day blasting recorded election speeches where no questions were ever answered and nobody ever got to the point.