BONEHEDs Unite!

First published September 30, 2005

A few weeks ago I suggested in this column that we should completely update the English Language. I mean, here we are text-messaging ourselves into the twenty-first century and we have to waste our time fooling around with outmoded concepts like “spelling,” “grammar,” and “punctuation.”

My idea was to form a group called the Bureau Of Nearly Everybody Hacking English Down, or BONEHED.

Well, as you might suppose, I got a lot of feedback on that one. Here’s one example:

Deer Mistur Funny Guy,

As Leedur of the Free World, I unnerstand that I oughta rip yur arm off and beat u with the bloody stump.

Ha, ha, ha.

Seeriusly, I unnerstand what u mean about them Spel Chekrs. They nevur wurk rite. That’s y I’ve appointed a krak team of guys who wurked on my my kampain to chek stuff like this note ovur for me. My dad was the eddukayshun president, so I unnerstand the importens of gud gramur and spling.

Sinseerly, yur friend,

Name Withheld By Request,

The White House, Washington, DC.

I even got a call from my eighth-grade English teacher, Miss Knucklebuster. “Well, young man, I suppose you think you’re smart,” she said.

“Wow, Miss Knucklebuster,” I replied. “I haven’t seen you for more than forty years. And you weren’t exactly a spring chicken back then! How come you’re alive?”

“Well, I might as well not be, if you and all your little friends are going to go and ruin the English language. You always were kind of a meathead.”

“That’s BONEHED. And we’re not ruining the language, just fixing it.”

“Fixing it? I never considered it broken. Except for a little bit of word-rot I’ve noticed in the last few years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Strange words keep popping up. Like ‘Blog;’ what the dickens does that mean?”

“It’s short for ‘Web Log.’ It means that people who can’t get their ideas published anywhere else can put them on the Web. Then other people can read the blog and add their own un-publishable ideas.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Of course it is. It’s information.”

“Accurate information?”

“Well no, not necessarily. Bloggers can write pretty much whatever they feel like writing.”

“And people who find factual errors can post corrections?”

“Well they could, but the blogger would probably just delete them.”

“So how do you know if a blogger is telling the truth?”

“If you agree with what he’s saying, you assume it must be true.”

“And if you don’t agree?”

“You just start your own blog, where you can write about what total jerks all the other bloggers are.”

“And in all this blogging you can also ignore spelling and grammar?”

“That’s the beauty of it! Lots of bloggers are BONEHEDs!”

“Indeed!”

“Anything else you’d like to know?” I was enjoying educating my former teacher.

“Bear with me,” she said, “I wrote down another word with which I was unfamiliar. I have it here somewhere.” I could hear Miss Knucklebuster digging around in her purse. “There, I found it. Oh yes. What is a ‘podcast?’”

“It’s the latest thing! Instead of taking all the time and effort to write things down for your blog, you just record an hour or so of yourself and maybe some friends mumbling things you believe to be clever, then you post the recording to the internet so people can download it and listen to it on their iPods.”

“And why would they want to do that?”

“Usually because they hope you’ll say something dirty.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally I said, “Miss Knucklebuster, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I was just sitting here listening to William Shakespeare spinning in his grave.”

After she hung up I realized that I forgot to invite her to join BONEHED.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball