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FICTION on the WEB short stories by Charlie Fish

The Spoken Word
The Spoken Word
by Charles Sundt 1995

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An armadillo arced angrily across an ancient acropolis, accosting an apallingly afraid ape.


"Dad," inquired the little boy, "Why do they call the colour blue, 'blue'?"

"Why not?"

"But why is any word... I mean, who decided which words went to what?"

"The English language is a combination of lots of other, older languages. That's why it's so rich and well-known."

"Yeah, but how did those languages come up, Dad?"

"Uhh... well, the primitive cave-men sort of needed a form of communication apart from 'Ugh', so some bright spark went around assigning words to things and teaching them to the rest of his tribe, and others, so they could talk sense to each other."

"But then how did the whole world follow, with the same type of languages?"

"Originally, very few people spoke the same language with the same letters, but it's sort of a human instinct, so it was picked up pretty quickly, then other languages developed from the roots of the spoken word."


A god sat on a small island on an ocean planet with a book in his hand. He wasn't sure of what he was doing. He didn't believe in himself. You see, he had to be an atheist because he hadn't invented the word 'believer' yet. He scanned the book he was holding. It was a dictionary. Ah, there it was - 'believer'. That was better, now he had some more confidence.

The god ran his finger down the page. The next entry was 'Belisha beacon'. He read the definition, waved his hand magically, and an amber globe appeared where there was to be a pole (it didn't fall because 'gravity' hadn't been invented yet). He couldn't wait until he got to 'pedestrian', then they could marvel at his new creation. No. It wasn't that important - he 'belittled' it. Right, 'bell' next...

The armadillo looked benignly, but only because it couldn't yet be confused, around the little landmass he was standing on. If he could wonder, he'd be wondering why so much on this small island began with an 'A'... and why he was suddenly turning blue!

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