20090514

[quoth] jonathan swift: gulliver's travels

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country.
The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns.
The other, was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever: And this was urged as great advantage in point of health as well as brevity. For, it is plain, that every word we speak is in some degree a diminution of our lungs by corrosion; and consequently contributes to the shortening of our lives.

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