Press conference at the Control Data Corporation

Major tech companies issue joint news release on innovative energy-saving plan

by Dr. Curt Epigramathus, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistic Knowledge

Pioneering conservation initiative likely to ignite controversy

Today several tech giants including Google, Yahoo, and Apple joined at the headquarters of the Control Data Corporation in Silicon Valley for a news conference to tout their newest initiative to conserve energy and reduce the load on their massive server farms.

The new campaign, unveiled with the slogan “ENUF is Enough,” is aimed at reducing the overall letter count that servers receive and process at any given moment. “The torrent of words comprised of so many letters arriving at our server farms uses enormous amounts of energy,” explained Dr. Adam Osborne of Digital Equipment, Inc. “We calculated that every letter uses about .000031416 watts to process. That may seem like a small number but it adds up quickly.”

“The English language is loaded with a whole lot of unnecessary letters,” stated Lewis Platt of Compaq computers. “We are asking people to consider changing the way several English language words are spelled, eliminating silent consonants and unnecessary vowels. Take ‘often’ for example, what is that ‘t’ for? We can just spell it o-f-e-n, much more efficient.”

“Some people do pronounce that ‘t’ in often,” the voice of one of the representatives could be heard saying, barely audible in the background, exposing some disagreement about details among the executives.

“We are working closely with online arbiters of word spellings such as Wiktionary and Wikipedia to ensure a streamlined transition to the new spellings,” said Platt. The companies have also filed a formal application to the English Dictionary Publisher’s Association and the National Association of Library Managers to make the word spellings official.

Conspicuously absent from the news conference was Twitter, which explained in a tweet that their lawyers had concerns about a potential conflict of interest problem.

The initiative has been received with mixed reactions. A member of the public at the news conference questioned the move, stating concerns about the erosion of the English language. Dr. Osborne quickly responded by saying, “Look, this is already happening on its own anyway, and by the way, abbreviations for common phrases are great too I-M-H-O,” pulling out a small sign that read “CU Later, LOL” as the attendee was escorted out of the room.

The biggest negative reactions came as the result of several proposed name changes. Philadelphia for example would become Filadelfia and Ghirardelli Square would become Giradeli Square. “Come on, no one pronounces that second “r” in Giradeli anyway,” stated Platt. The mayor of Philadelphia has called an emergency meeting of his staff and Ghirardelli Chocolates issued their own public statement decrying the proposal.

The tech companies shared hard copies of a list of target words and place names that they said would be published on their websites later in the day that they believe should be shortened.

Below is a partial list. For the full list, click here.

New spellings to eliminate the silent B:

limb is now lim
crumb is now crum
dumb is now dum
bomb is now bom
thumb  = thum
climb = clim
debt = det
doubt = dout
subtle = sutle

Eliminate the silent or redundant C in:

muscle is now musle
scissors = sissors
ascent = asent
miscellaneous = misellaneous
fascinate = fasinate
scenario = senario
acquaintance = aquaintance
acknowledge = aknowledge
acquiesce = aquiese
acquit = aquit

Eliminate gh in:

through = thru
thorough = thoro
daughter = dauter
drought = drout
sigh = si
thought = thout

Change “ough” to “uf” in:

rough = ruf
tough = tuf
enough = enuf
cough = cof

Change “augh” to “af” in:

laugh = laf
draught = draft

Eliminate the silent K in:

knife = nife
knee = nee
knock = nock
knowledge = nowledge
Knead = nead

Eliminate the silent W in:

wrong = rong
wrap = rap
write = rite
wreck = reck
wrestle = restle
wrist = rist

Change PH to F in:

alphabet = alfabet
sophomore = sofomore
telephone = telefone
paragraph = paragraf
epiphany = epifany

Eliminate the silent T in:

castle = casle
listen = lisen
fasten = fasen
whistle = whisle
thistle = thisle
bustle = busle

And for even more interesting information on this topic, click here.

 

5 replies
  1. Gene
    Gene says:

    Great idea!. The language wood become mor fonetic related. As I age, my spelling of words is deteriorating and I mor and mor rely on the sound of words.

    Reply
  2. Amy B. Jolly
    Amy B. Jolly says:

    As someone who has a long standing beef with the letter “c” I applaud this effort. C does not have its own sound it makes either the ‘k’ or the ‘s’ sound. It does not have a sound of its own. It should be eliminated.

    Reply

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