Stut UP!!

ok, this is something I wrote after I got bugged by people telling me that Shut up is a curse word. actually it depends on how you use it.

read this if you got time...

Why is the word, “Shut Up”, Labeled as a curse word? Why are people reprimanded and corrected for using that word?

The literal meaning for “Shut Up” is:

Stop talking: to be quiet or stop talking

Silence somebody: to cause somebody to be quiet or stop talking

Confine somebody: to confine or imprison somebody or something

Close something: to close or prevent entrance to something

So why is, “Shut Up”, such a bad word? Well actually it isn’t. People just want you to think it is. It has happened to a lot of words.

Maybe 50 years ago the word “shut up” meant - be quiet -. Just as other words had different meanings – gay meant happy, cool meant cold, and Jesus meant Jesus.

If you stop and think about it, soon the number of curse words will increase to the point where every word you say could be in some way considered a curse word. Obviously there is something or someone behind all of this. If someone could change the meaning of a word to something completely different, and get the whole world to follow him by using his new meaning of the word, then what could he not do?

After “Shut Up” became a curse word, people had to find a new word that had the same meaning as “Shut Up”, but wasn’t as offensive to the public, or to whom ever the speaker was speaking to.

So they came up with a new word for “Shut Up” or should I say new words. Now there is more than one word for “Shut Up”. There is be quite – the most commonly used form – “shush” or “Shhhhhhh!”, “lower the volume”, “zip-the-lip”, “bar down”, ect. So now they made you think that you have multiple choices.

Actually you have so many words to choose from that you don’t even use more than one-third of all the English words. The average U.S. citizen only uses around 10,000 words or less. You might occasionally get some professor with a P.H.D in this and that, who uses 20,000 words, but that still hardly chips the surface of all the words.

The English language has so many old and unused words that it has the most words in all the languages in the world. I don’t exactly know why it does or why people don’t want to change it, but I have some ideas:

1. People want to have variety in their speech – although they could safely remove half of all the English words and still have variety in their speech.
2. People want the English language to be superior to other languages. I.E. have the most words.
3. People are just too lazy to “clean up” the English language.
4. People are afraid of changing the language or even cleaning it up a little. They worry about the “what-if’s”.
5. There is no “undo” button incase a mistake is made or the people don’t like it outcome.

My solution to the problem is to divide the language into five different sections or categories:

1. Old English – for the old English.
2. New English – for the new English.
3. American English – for U.S. users.
4. English, English – for English users.
5. Australian English – for Australian users.

There that would make everything a whole lot easier, especially since right now, the English language is just a bunch of clutter that without cleaning would soon turn into a jumble of nothingness. The world would be faced with three options, one: find a different language, two: make a new language, and three: not to use a spoken or written language at all.

Ok let’s try option number one - find a different international language.

Think if the world chose Chinese or Manchurian. Well you would be faced with some serious problems. But then there would be some advantages to. Well the advantage it that when you name you kids you would have less names to choose from, thereby avoiding the long and often hard task of naming the baby. However, that’s the downside too. The names to choose from would be limited to, “Kim”, “Dung”, or “Ill”.

Ok well what if they chose French? Well that should be simple enough, just add a “–le” or “-en” in front of your good-ol’ English words and Voila! You’ve got French!

Let’s try option number two - Make a new language.

Well it’s easier said than done.

Options number three - not to use a spoken or written language at all.

Some people might think that this is going backwards but it does have advantages too. Namely that you wouldn’t have to talk, you could use body language. I.E. instead of telling the person that he stinks, you could use simple body language to convey the exact same thing by using these two simple steps: one, sniff with your nose in his direction. Two, make a disgusted face, or vomit. There quite simple. But with all those words that you want to say and explain to your friends or whom ever you are talking to, you might run into some complications. Like say you want to play basketball. You pick up the ball and start to bounce it and later through it in the air, your friend might mistake that for, let’s get some rocks, see if they bounce and, if they do, throw them at people. So there are downsides to not having a language.

I guess there is some good things about English. Like variety. There are probably more than 10,000, or more, names that you pull out of the one million English words. Another advantage is that even though some words are never used and outdated, they can still be used. Let’s say you want to name your son Methuselah. Well no one is going to stop you from doing that. Except maybe your wife, who would say something like this.

“How could you name him Methuselah?! I can’t even spell that! And you expect him to be able to?”

Or this:

“How could you name him Methuselah?! Think of all the trouble he would have in kindergarten? Or school with all those kids who would bully and tease him about his name!”

Well that’s only a problem if your kid is the one getting bullied. If you switch that around then your kid should have no problem in kindergarten or in school whatsoever.

He could even shorten his name to Meth, Sel, or even Hus. Of course I don’t know anyone called Methuselah, and I don’t think I ever will. And then were back the main problem with English – too many old and unused words.

Ok so there are words in the English language that we can get rid of. How do we do that? Simple.

The next time you read or hear someone say a word that you personally have never heard before. Then just let them know that that particularly word has been removed from the English list of words on October 10^th, 2005 at 12:43 A.M. if they still continue in the use of such words, then – kindly – refer them to where you read this. It should solve all of their problems.

About the usage of the word, “shut up”. Well I personally still think that it should be used how it was originally intended to be used - to let someone know that he or she is being extra loud and if they wouldn’t mind being a little more quiet.

Of course if your Mommy tells you not to use the word, “shut up”, as mentioned above, then please – kindly – refer her to this paper. It should remove the cloud of misconception from her mind.