A Language of Only Ten Words (Part 3) – Mad Chaos: February 19, 1999

Cards at Subway Again

Getting to sleep after our phone call as I was tired from what I had eaten I slept for an hour but then I was called back by Lyssa. Not too sure on what we talked about but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t all about smelling roses. This would have been the time that Lyssa and I said goodnight to each other and now being awake I gave Keith a call to see if anything was going on for the night.

Keith, Shawn and Tatton were at ‘Subway’ playing ‘Asshole’ but they were thinking of heading to my house to pick me up anyway. So off they headed and half an hour they finally arrived at my house. Jumping in the car with my packet of playing cards we headed to Tatton’s house where we dropped him off and on the way I asked if he wouldn’t mind driving me to Keith’s work tomorrow afternoon so I could get my money out, he didn’t mind.

Initially I was going to get Ralf to do it for me but giving him a call I realized he was headed to New Zealand early on Friday on behalf of his parents for land that they might claim. Ralf asked me not to tell anyone so I guess I won’t.

Cops and Impounded Cars

Heading to ‘Subway’ with just the three of us we sat down and played our card game once again with no one there but the people behind the counter. The cops were out in force for the night as the drags were on. Outside I noticed two trucks with cars on the back and I gathered that they were there because they were getting impounded like Ali’s car had been. They were pulling over everyone that came past the road they were on and what’s more, they impounded a yellow Celica like Ali’s old beast.

The difference is that this car was a touch more done up and straight so it was a shame to see it hoisted up to be taken away for three months. Meanwhile, inside ‘Subway’ we received free chicken once again while playing our game and having been asked to leave around 1:00 a.m. the score was 9, 7, 5 where Keith was in the lead and I was coming second.

It was best to 10 and Shawn and I were just starting to find our groove but once we were evacuated we couldn’t be bothered waiting around for them to leave so we just headed home. Now that I’m back at home I am typing within my Diary and because I am up to date now with chronology I have nothing more for it to say. The time is 5:45 a.m. and for that I won’t throw free thoughts in the air but I will say one thought that is in my mind here in the next paragraph.

Ten Words and a Challenge

Treating this like a short essay or assignment I want you to imagine the world with only the use of ten words in the vocabulary. In today’s age there are million of words in the English language that make up so many significant meanings and expressions. In that last line alone I must have used at least twenty of those words. My challenge to you is to comprise a language that uses the English Alphabet but where this language of prehistoric significance has only ten words. Can you comprise a language with only ten words in it that all could use every single day without too much confusion or disorder in meaning.

Ten words, your choice of words but they should be able to be used in a broad range of meanings and subjects. For example, what language could go without a greeting and thus “Hello” would be my first consequential word of the ten words available to the language. To make things more difficult, you have to use every single word in the alphabet at least once in any of the ten words and the words can be as short or as long in syllabic content as possible.

Having ‘Hello’ as a word probably doesn’t have significance as you can always nod your head in approval so it might be overrated in use. On top of that, you would probably have to include a gesture to that but to make things more difficult, we will make two levels of correspondence. The second level being the easier one will see you using twenty words for the English language.

In those twenty words there is no barrier in having to use all the letters of the alphabet and such things as hand gestures and body gestures are possible, grunting is allowed. However on the first level and harder level the English Language is comprised of no more than 10 words. Although they have no bar on syllabic content they must have each letter of the alphabet within the ten words, pretty hard.

On top of that, you can’t use any sort of gesture. So, to say “Hello” or to farewell someone you can’t wave your hands, wink, point, nod your head or any gesture of that sort. To show you are farewelling someone you must indeed say “Farewell” as in this harder level there is no compromise. Thus, what would your ten words be that will be of vital importance to the well being and evolution of a population’s understanding.

My Own Ten Words

Just off the top of my head and without proper consideration I believe I would use the words ‘Yes, No, Good, Bad, Hello, Goodbye, yonder, help, use, one’. The first four are for obvious reasons but I feel that ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ might not be needed in a civilization, people will just know to leave. ‘Yonder’ will be used for pointing at objects and only with this word will pointing be allowed to accentuate an action.

‘Help’ is so that aid can be given in assistance to what they are doing. ‘Use’ can be used in many applications where it can talk from using a rock or using a hand. The word ‘One’ is to link the language with the symbolization of numerate skills. ‘One’ being the basic building block of calculation, to repeatedly say this word would be to count and thus, a calculation and capacity can be understood, even with this primitive language.

Thus, to explain a rock with this simplicity the subject would point saying “Yonder, one” and then picking it up he would note “Good, yes”. If he were to throw it a simple way to say this in an understandable terminology would be to say “Use good one, yes, use yonder, goodbye”. Am I getting tired or is it just me, why don’t you give it a try anyway and I’ll get to sleep.

Friday 5:12 p.m.

Bored on a Friday Afternoon

The hours are once again progressing in the day and for once in the last week or two I have been able to get bored. That’s right, I have at least an hour left until I head to Keith’s work to get my free money from the shabby electronic transfer system and then hopefully, by Sunday I can also get the Nintendo for myself.

Charting the Mental Cycles

Hopefully now that I’m more free with time I can write a Sonnet as there has been a drain for a fair while. That I blame on the chronology that was chronic through the last few days and on top of that my cycles have been weighed with negative physical and emotional cycles but my mental has been positive. For this reason I feel that the mental cycle has been brought down a couple of notches and it has been showing in these past few days but starting from tomorrow I will achieve a couple of days running of three positive cycles, that’s got to be good.

Anyway, I might as well include the cycles in the Diary so you can understand what I’m trying to get at. There will be a graph included in my Diary in the next couple of days detailing the progress I have made with recording my mental highs and lows over the past 33 day mental cycle. If my hunch is correct then the triple positive days should be the most rewarding. If I am wrong then you won’t be seeing much poetry within these pages on those days. Let’s now print these days here…

Physical 23 DAY CYCLE 23rd DAY -11

Emotional 28 DAY CYCLE 1st DAY +1

Mental 33 DAY CYCLE 10th DAY +10

Fallout From the Robbery

Some more talk now on the robbery at Simon’s house and that of Lucas’s house also. Keith informed me just on the phone that he was over there today chatting about selling his tires to Simon and while there they didn’t accuse anyone in our group of robbing his house.

Rather, he just showed Keith the extent of the damage and also that the cops were doing fingerprints on the back door and Keith noted that there were heaps of fingerprints all over doors and house. Now that it’s become a criminal matter I hope that they don’t get busted because if they do they either see some jail time or they get a very long bond. Bad boys bad boys, what you gonna do.

Sunday Plans With Lyssa

To speak of what’s happened so far today Lyssa decided to give me a call from work at 11:30 a.m. asking what the plans were for Sunday. That conversation only lasted for a minute as I had to get back to sleep but upon waking up at 1:30 p.m. I gave Lyssa a call back. Unluckily Lyssa wasn’t at work so I had to count on her calling me back. For that short time I walked into the shower and halfway through Lyssa decided to call me back.

Making plans for Sunday we gathered that Lyssa would call me when she wanted me to leave. Giving me her phone number I would leave and then once at Tempe I would call her back and tell her to meet up with me. When she leaves I will either be waiting on the train station or already in the park at Tempe for her. That seemed to go well with Lyssa and then I told her that she might be able to sleep over my house tonight.

Lyssa is going out until 11:30 p.m. with Penelope and Ali and then she will call my house to see if I’m home. If I am at home she will sleep over until the morning, if I’m not at home yet then it’s obvious she will sleep at home. Let’s just hope that I can get the Nintendo from Shawn without much hassles, hope for a gift from the taker.