Translate

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Today's #Scifi #fantasy short story TheLinguistAndThe21stCentury

“Is that your final answer?”
The Spanish Inquisition*

       I learned something recently, that a woman has already run for the presidential seat, got a great deal of publicity and this was over one hundred years ago. Her name was Victoria Woodhull and she was nominated by the Equal Rights Party on May 10, 1872. She got big media coverage and a great deal of people smeared her(but didn't attack her political opinions it was mostly personal) She was even arrested and put into prison on election day. The government wouldn't put her on the ballot. Anyway she's one of those people that's been dropped from most history books over the years and if it weren't for the Internet I wouldn't have heard about her. She also wasn't single issue she had an entire platform, though mostly the history books focus on her opinions on marriage(the most controversial) she had opinions on tax reform, prison reform etc. and although I don't agree with her on everything I think she is a smart woman. (Poor girl did have a life with lots of scandals especially when the media tried to rip into her) This site (http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/wood-vic.htm) covers her “story” for a lack of better words although you may want to go find others to find out a more extended version of her views beyond her marriage views. It's always interesting to learn about someone normally dropped from the history books. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

 
The Linguist and the 21st Century

       “I just PWNED my BFF lol.” This was one of the many messages I had to decipher from the 21st century. Some books remained from their era but a massive solar flare destroyed most digital records from that time, which was their primary means of recording leaving them fairly mysterious in history. (These days we record things in artificially produced neuron sheets as this is the age of bio-technology) However recently some databases were found in an old, underground facility, revealing some form of language they used mostly digitally back then and as a linguist it was my job to decipher it. We assume so many of these things may be abbreviations but they seem based on random contexts and we don't have much to figure them out from. Any records from phones would require what context the call was in. The databases do have somethings from the Internet but they still seem to be some sort of communication forums about a 3rd subject we cannot identify as it was culturally specific for that era. BFF has appeared in many cases and seems to denote some point of familiarity, but there is much debate between the various historians, linguists and anthropologists debate. Most people follow my theories as I have been one of the first to begin studying the records and have a great deal of education in both linguistics and anthropology. (Though the majority of my education is in linguistics)
        Based on various contexts my current deduction seems to be that BFF is a gladiatorial slavery partner. I think that one of the Fs in BFF must stand for “friend”. The B and other F I cannot find any records. Perhaps B means battle. My gladiatorial deduction comes from the fact that they frequently face each other in games frequently challenging each other where they reference killing or beating one another. I am not sure whether or not these games are simulated or real with fake weaponry but since they reference owning each other I do believe that victory in games results in temporary ownership of the other individual. Hence my “slavery” deduction. There are some slight references in some places of “friending” and “unfriending” people. Where or how this formality occurs none of our researches have yet to discover but considering how often this slavery item occurs I assume that the government set whatever system it was up to regulate the slavery. Thus under my current theory “I just PWNED my BFF lol.” means that the sender is telling someone they know that they have just successfully enslaved their BFF until they are owned in another round. PWNED I have noticed is an alternate spelling. Whether or not it is a mistake or has some other, deeper meaning I have yet to deduce. As for the lol it seems this phrase has some indication of amusement in most statements. I am not sure as to how sadistic this society was to enjoy the enslavement or if perhaps instead of just meaning amusement it means relief and the individual just means that they were happy that it wasn't them.
       Either way I am writing my third paper on my theories and a great deal of the researches do agree with me as my deductions are fairly logical. I do hope more evidence of context shows up so I can fill in some holes and get more solid evidence for all my theories. They are currently digging for more facilities that could have survived the solar flare. 

This work is copyright Langdon Kennedy you may share this(email it, print it, post it on your own website, broadcast it etc.) work unaltered as long as you credit me as the author and share a link to this blog with it and it is not for profit. If you have any questions and/or are unclear of these conditions email me at llkenne1@asu.edu

Author Comment: Regarding a solar flare destroying most digital records as I said in the story...that can happen and even very soon. Some scientists think a solar flare can hit us in 2013 and knock out pretty much all electronics and perhaps do other really nasty things. Here's a link to doom and gloom if you want to read it...http://www.2013solarflare.com/ that is only one of many websites talking about it. Others have pictures. I dunno all we can do is wait. Then again like with giant asteroids apocalypses are supposed to hit and they just fly by our planet. We just have to let the universe roll the die. Tomorrow though I'll think surf I may youtube and look at videos of adorable cats and maybe you should too! Bye everybody! Sunshine and rainbows and joy! :)


No comments:

Post a Comment