Lexica

Copyright 1995 Nat Gertler. All rights reserved. This work is for on-line viewing from this site only, and is not to be reproduced in any means without written permission.

Unrest had come to the land of Lexica.

There had always been problems with nouns and verbs not agreeing, but now it was worse than ever, with harsh words on both sides. The nouns held all of the major institutions amongst them, and were controlling the land in a very conservative manner. They had instituted mandatory sentences for obscenities, restricted conjugative rights for irregular verbs, and made it illegal to carelessly split infinitives.

The verbs did not take well to this, for they were activist by nature. When Push came to Pushed, then Pushes, then Pushing, it became clear that the verbs were tensing up. The conjunctions did what they could to keep things together, but Conflict was in the wings. When Conflict approached the verb camp, some of the verbs were Worrying and Fretting. "This means war!" said one verb, Shouting.

The nouns had Strength and Weapons on their side, but members of the verbs were Fighting, Slaying, and even Winning. Some adjectives joined them, and they were Fierce, Cunning, and Wily.

Word leaked out that the nouns had hired a pronoun. He strode onto the field of battle. That singular, masculine pronoun proved a tough fighter. Bang! Pow! Crunch! The onomatopoeia were kept busy. Severed prefixes and gnarled roots were strewn everywhere.

The adverbs Sadly and Forlornly looked over the field of battle. There were Casualties and Fatalities among the nouns. The ranks of the verbs included Wounded and Suffering. Many of the verbs were now in the past tense.

In the end, nothing had been decided. The nouns laid claim to Victory, but the verbs said that they had Won. It was just another failure to communicate.

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