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
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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.
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