The Book of Book
March 10th 2008 02:11
Almost three years ago exactly, I changed the English language.
See, my brother was on his schoolies week when he sent me a message about the room they were staying in. I assume I asked him what it was like, because he sent me back a one word text message: "Cool".
Only, he didn't send that. He was using predictive text, which translated the 2665 keys as "book". The message I received told me that the room he was staying in was book.
My first reaction upon reading this message was that my brother was engaging in some sort of abstract expressionism, which either meant that the small pills that typically made their way around the community during schoolies week had somehow found their way into his bloodstream, or that he was staying at Byron Bay's new Willem de Kooning Resort and Hotel. Look it up.
But, after briefly examining the keys on my own phone, I figured out what had happened. And a light went off in my head. Or rather, a jhigv went off in my idaf. (Okay, so the dual predictive text thing doesn't always work. Although, now I sound like Anthony Burgess. Look it up.)
It didn't take long for my friends and I to start using "book" in place of "cool", only now on purpose. Abstract expressionism was out the door, and technological post-modernism had taken over.
My plans were wild and huge. "Book" would become a new widely-used slang, and I would be directly (and yet only partly) responsible for it. Would it be the next "cool", never out of fashion, never out of use? Or would it be the next "radical", relegated to a very special corner of the early 1990s and select episodes of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"? It didn't matter. If this thing worked, my obituary was half-written.
Of course, it didn't work out this way. Three years on, and my friends and I are still only using it in text messages to each other. We've told other people about it (making sure they remember the important component: I invented it), and, within our circles, it's had brief moments of faddism before quickly fading back into obscurity (leading me to wonder if the word is, in fact, radical).
We've always talked about incorporating it into any films and books we happen to write, suspecting that if the product is iconic enough, that will be best way to get the kids to say it. I'm positive that this conversation -- or a variant on it -- is taking place right now in the boardrooms of Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Willem de Koonig's Raspberry Porcupine Bricks Pty Ltd. Marketing to the kids is big business.
However, even I have failed to use book (sl.) in the 40 000 words of my unfinished novel "Fryland" which was, quite coincidentally, about corporate sponsorship of rogue secessionist states... I know, it sounds like a barn burner. I should totally finish it. But if it's failed to capture even my imagination, how can it be expected to ingrain itself into the minds of the public? A question I'm not ready to answer.
So how does the word work? How can you incorporate it into your own life? "Book" is an obvious substitute for "cool", but you can also adapt it. There's "bookish", "booky" and "bookity". If a club/bar/location is cool, it could be "a total library". If someone's a trend-setter, they're "heavily involved in the publishing industry". And if someone is really dumb but everyone else thinks they're cool, that person could be "Dan Brown". The possibilities are endless.
My hopes that my new slang word will take off have diminished over the years, but they're still a flicker there. I still believe that the word has a shot at the big time, which is the reason I'm writing this blog. See, once I publish this, it'll be a matter of public record, and there'll at least be some solid proof that I had a hand in some genuine etymablishment (I claim that word as well, by the way).
You never know. Perhaps book (sl.) will become so popular, that when people refer to the word's original meaning, they'll have to add a bracketed explanation. As in: "...I was down at Borders looking for a book (the bound paper thing with words printed in it), when I remembered I'd grown a tumor on my..." etc. It's impossible to create something without destroying something else, which could mean that I will be responsible for obliterating the original meaning of the word "book". Look it up.
See, my brother was on his schoolies week when he sent me a message about the room they were staying in. I assume I asked him what it was like, because he sent me back a one word text message: "Cool".
Only, he didn't send that. He was using predictive text, which translated the 2665 keys as "book". The message I received told me that the room he was staying in was book.
My first reaction upon reading this message was that my brother was engaging in some sort of abstract expressionism, which either meant that the small pills that typically made their way around the community during schoolies week had somehow found their way into his bloodstream, or that he was staying at Byron Bay's new Willem de Kooning Resort and Hotel. Look it up.
But, after briefly examining the keys on my own phone, I figured out what had happened. And a light went off in my head. Or rather, a jhigv went off in my idaf. (Okay, so the dual predictive text thing doesn't always work. Although, now I sound like Anthony Burgess. Look it up.)
It didn't take long for my friends and I to start using "book" in place of "cool", only now on purpose. Abstract expressionism was out the door, and technological post-modernism had taken over.
My plans were wild and huge. "Book" would become a new widely-used slang, and I would be directly (and yet only partly) responsible for it. Would it be the next "cool", never out of fashion, never out of use? Or would it be the next "radical", relegated to a very special corner of the early 1990s and select episodes of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"? It didn't matter. If this thing worked, my obituary was half-written.
Of course, it didn't work out this way. Three years on, and my friends and I are still only using it in text messages to each other. We've told other people about it (making sure they remember the important component: I invented it), and, within our circles, it's had brief moments of faddism before quickly fading back into obscurity (leading me to wonder if the word is, in fact, radical).
We've always talked about incorporating it into any films and books we happen to write, suspecting that if the product is iconic enough, that will be best way to get the kids to say it. I'm positive that this conversation -- or a variant on it -- is taking place right now in the boardrooms of Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Willem de Koonig's Raspberry Porcupine Bricks Pty Ltd. Marketing to the kids is big business.
However, even I have failed to use book (sl.) in the 40 000 words of my unfinished novel "Fryland" which was, quite coincidentally, about corporate sponsorship of rogue secessionist states... I know, it sounds like a barn burner. I should totally finish it. But if it's failed to capture even my imagination, how can it be expected to ingrain itself into the minds of the public? A question I'm not ready to answer.
So how does the word work? How can you incorporate it into your own life? "Book" is an obvious substitute for "cool", but you can also adapt it. There's "bookish", "booky" and "bookity". If a club/bar/location is cool, it could be "a total library". If someone's a trend-setter, they're "heavily involved in the publishing industry". And if someone is really dumb but everyone else thinks they're cool, that person could be "Dan Brown". The possibilities are endless.
My hopes that my new slang word will take off have diminished over the years, but they're still a flicker there. I still believe that the word has a shot at the big time, which is the reason I'm writing this blog. See, once I publish this, it'll be a matter of public record, and there'll at least be some solid proof that I had a hand in some genuine etymablishment (I claim that word as well, by the way).
You never know. Perhaps book (sl.) will become so popular, that when people refer to the word's original meaning, they'll have to add a bracketed explanation. As in: "...I was down at Borders looking for a book (the bound paper thing with words printed in it), when I remembered I'd grown a tumor on my..." etc. It's impossible to create something without destroying something else, which could mean that I will be responsible for obliterating the original meaning of the word "book". Look it up.
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