Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   1
 languages during his life. Aside from a few Elvish poems in 
the 
Lord of the Rings
 trilogy, Tolkien wrote in his constructed 
languages mostly for his own, um, entertainment. Many of 
his Elvish writings since have been translated by a dedicated 
group of Tolkienians who go by the name Elvish Linguistic 
Fellowship (ELF—so clever, those Tolkien fanatics). Th
 e Que-
nya dialect of Elvish (as heard in the movies) sounds a lot like 
Finnish, but most of the vocabulary came straight from Tolk-
ien’s mind. And yes, Tyler really 
is
  speaking  Elvish  in  the 
movies, although many Tolkienians claim her accent is, like, 
totally bogus.
ESPERANTO
Why It’s Worth Learning:
 So you can help rebuild the Tower 
of Babel.
Why It Was Invented:
 To end all disagreement, war, strife, 
and unhappiness.
How Long It Takes to Learn:
 Esperanto advocates say it’s 
easier to learn than most any other language. But still, that 
means you will only be able to say “Pierre is going to the 
 
library with his friend the acrobat” for the fi rst  six 
months.
The Basics:
 Between 1877 and 1885, a Polish Jew named 
L. L. Zamenhof constructed a language. He hoped that a uni-
versal, easy-to-learn language might create a world where 
people could communicate with one another using words 
rather than bullets. His language, Esperanto (which means 
“one who is hoping” in Esperanto and “one whose hope is a bit 
unrealistic” in English), caught fi re with European intellectu-
als, but never took root with the public at large. Today there 
are some two million Esperanto speakers worldwide, but on 

---

12
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
the whole, people still prefer communicating with bullets: In 
the 20th century, there were some 110,000,000 war-related 
deaths.
MIRROR ENGLISH
Why It’s Worth Learning:
 It’s not.
Why It Was Invented:
 Someone held a book up to a mirror 
and said, “Hey. I can’t read that.”
How Long It Takes to Learn:
 If you own a mirror, you’re basi-
cally already fl uent.
The Basics:
 In mirror English the letters are reversed, so as 
to be read in front of a mirror, and the meaning of the words 
is  also  reversed,  so  as  to  seem  clever.  For  example,  if  you 
wanted  to  say,  “Your  little  friend,  Boris,  sleeps  with  the 
fi shes,” you might write 
Bo
ris
, is a
wa
ke w
ith t
he bi
rds.
”
“Y
our bi
g en
em
y,
 Or take the fi rst sentence of the following 
quotation we just made up: “I will never understand the con-
cept of ‘dry hair.’ You don’t need a special 
shampoo
 to de-dry 
your hair. You need 
water.
” Th
 at fi rst sentence might become
“Y
ou wil
l so
on un
ders
ta
nd th
e concept of ‘
gre
asy h
air
.’ ”
 
05
Hair Grease
(and Other Major Greases)
Hair grease is a substance called sebum (a term also used to 
refer to body oil generally) that is secreted by the sebaceous 
glands onto hair follicles. Sebum isn’t really bad for you, but 
it does contain some cholesterol, which means it’s probably 
not ideal to eat.

---

13