If We Were Buying Words

What if we had to buy words for usage? And how many times we want to use them too.

The price is different for each word, as everything in our world. Be it clothes, food, tech, anything.

Some words are cheap, and you can buy them everywhere. Others are expensive, and you can buy them everywhere too. But some are cheap, yet you cannot find them everywhere. They are difficult to find, and that’s the catch, not their price. Of course, there are luxury words too. You need a little fortune to buy just one of them, and most folks can only observe them, never buy and use.

As an extra option, you can buy the spelling of each word. And the accent with which to pronounce it. Not everywhere, though.

• Some areas, people buy emphasis on the vowels only, while in other areas people would rather buy emphasis on the consonants.
• Some places, you can buy just the incorrect spelling or accent.
• Some places, it’s available as a more expensive option, and people would buy it because of its style.

Also, buying words in bulks is cheaper. And getting synonyms in bulk is cheaper than buying the words one-by-one too.

Oftentimes there are better-looking alternatives available at the same price. You want to buy one word, a cheap one, but here you see another, of a slightly higher price. And you walk thinking whether it’s worth overpaying for.

First, you contemplate each word. You smell it, touch it, feel it. You try to imagine how you come home, and say the new word to your significant other.

Then, you buy the high-class one. And before you know it, here you are, a part of the system. You start looking for rare words.

Quintessence. Cognitive dissonance. Exhibitionism. Oxymoron.

Is there some hidden price you pay? Yes, it is, you become different. People you know, they treat you differently. Someone, they are in awe. Someone else, they straight dislike you for ‘showing-off’.

Different people develop differently over time. Someone would pursue the exorbitant words, others would pursue extravagant ones. Lavish, sumptuous, extortionate, precious and priceless, worth its weight in gold, costing the earth, worth a king’s ransom, sky-high, costing an arm and a leg, a daylight robbery. In other words, overpriced.

Someone would pursue the stylish ones, never minding having their hands dirty and delving into some old rubbish books to find some at a bargain-price. They won’t get too much of them, won’t pile them up. But they’ll use them daily. They can describe anything with these limited words. Being short, but concise. Eloquent.

Someone would buy the rare words, only to find out those are piece of fucking shit.

The fuck I’ve spent so much on that shit?! Huh? Who’d give me my money back? I could buy a lot of other fucking words for the price, you moron! I myself can invent words, without you, the flying fucks! Hey, Lucy, look! I’m fucking inventor, we’re gonna patent what I’m saying and be fucking rich!

There are unlimited plans available. You pay money, and you get as many words as you want, you know. Err, eh, huh, emmmm, well, so, I mean, this.

There are tiny signboards of the abbreviations & acronyms chain, not many visiting.

There are services for selling legal (or not, but it’s under control, nobody is gonna touch you, never be afraid) licences to use and morph the words fuck, dick, cunt. They are expensive, sometimes much more expensive than the luxury words you can find, those you have to study before you use them. But the price isn’t to be worried about, if you are worried how your pals are gonna treat you without these words. Aren’t you a fucking man, huh?

There are whole business areas around just words. Some nations develop their distinctive features. Someone starts exporting the words for other cultures. Germanic languages influence the western world. Some languages influence the course of history. Some cultures wiping other more advanced languages and forcing their newspeak barbaric languages instead.

• Germans manufacture long and complex words, but very useful ones. They export some of them world-wide.
• Brits, Spanish, and Portuguese massively export their words overseas.
• French and Italian people, they sell some pronunciation. A handiwork that you can keep for your successors.
• Japanese invent beautiful signs for the words, sometimes it’s a special sign for a group of words. The planet is finite to litter it with the rubbish.
• Chinese aren’t far, but they don’t mind producing en-masse. Their signs are similar, but only from the first glance and for those who understand nothing of signs.
• Americans, they buy up everything. Money isn’t an issue, and you may have some use for this or that word. They refuse to buy the spelling and accents though. Not because of the money, I’m telling you, money is never an issue. It’s an attack on your freedom of expression. It’s you who decide, not someone you’ve never seen in your life. And they want others to understand that’s how it should be. There’s no right or wrong here. It’s a democracy.

The world isn’t what it was before.
Well, except Russians.

• Russians are the same barbarians they always were¹. They steal words from others, change their meaning, and then with the use of genocide, torturing and raping and slaughtering, would force these pseudo-new words on their old owners and their youth. So their survived descendants would speak the Russian newspeak instead of their original languages.

The old timers brag the words weren’t for sale forever. Nobody thought of buying words, what a nonsense! You just get it when you need it!

They valued differently, the words—

The idea isn’t exactly mine, we’ve developed it in a conversation with my significant other.

Do you remember? Remember the time—

I re-wrote this story a number of times, trying to re-translate it for others. I’m lack on words myself, sometimes.