January 23, 2002

How the English language cheated us all
   by groulder

English is without a doubt the most used language around the world, however, there is a certain element about it that just makes me wanna go PFFT!

It appears that in the creation and maturity of the language the word "to" has developed into three different spellings. As we are all aware, we have the standard to, the two that represents the number, and the too used for emphasis.

This sadly was not developed for "so." "So what are you up to?" -- this is how they expect us to speak? What if I want to emphasise something that is extremely huge, "It was sooooooooooooooooooooo big," I can't do it. English doesn't allow me to do it. How could they forget about poor, insignificant "so?"

They just assume to make up for the lack of "o's" allowed in "so" we can append an abudency of exclamation marks on the end, like "It was so big!!!!!!!!!" Who talks like that? Do you talk like that? I don't talk like that. This sentence really implies I'm trying to emphasise the "big," but who wants to emphasise the "big?" If I was to say that as a sentence, I would want to stretch it out, "It was sooooo big!" A super "so" with an exclamation mark on the end would make for a superior sentence, but since we're not allowed to do this, we have to settle for an inferior sentence, due to appended exclamation marks.

"Too" was carefully designed. Who needs to put more than two "oo's" in "too?" "He was tooooo big," what the hell are you talking about? "Too" requires little emphasis, but still some, and therefore the carefully thought out extra "o" was added.

So I ask you this, we may have sufficient "too's" to be used in our sentences, but who wants to live in a world without, "sooooooooo?"

Published: January 23, 2002
Editor: stacy