One of the many innumerable benefits of the Chomskyan revolution is that we can see clearly that everything in the human mind is synthetic a priori, except for the parts that are analytic a priori. As the great man (pax eocum) himself has stated, even the concept of “carburetor” is innate. Besides the fascinating fact that both UG and the concept “UG” are therefore innate,2 this has deafening repercussions for the less well-
While this thus gives us the basic structures of human thought, its mental DNA and the rudiments of its number theory, if you will, it remains to flesh out (as it were) all the different ramifications of this, and in particular the processes by which the mental DNA is expressed in fully-
To investigate this question, I decided to study this matter empirically with the benefit of the modern computer, building on recent revolutionary advances in genetics, philosophy, and the better sort of theoretical linguistics (not the kind this journal goes in for). The rules of good writing laid out in several guides for novice writers were distilled to their UG essence and several contemporary authors ranked by the faithfulness with which they met the resulting system of constraints. The results are baleful.
The first question we should answer when beginning any investigation is what methodology to follow. In linguistics, the answer once upon a time was to follow psychology, specifically behaviorism (structuralism), then later to follow computer science (generativism). The very terminology of current theoretical linguistics is chock-
One might retort that biochemistry does no such thing and then mutter something silly about neurochemistry, much like a particularly dull child saying that biology doesn’t study horsies but rather zoology5 does. Merely stating this objection fully shows its inadequacy, so let us proceed. As Chomsky (pax eocum) has revealed, the basic elements of what we might call human concepts (as opposed to the concepts of science) are innate, and thus clearly genetically encoded. It is the job of true linguistics to determine the structures of human thought from the genetic code
As the smarter sort of modern person knows, the biochemistry of the organism is encoded in the DNA (or the RNA in certain cases) by triplets of nucleotides corresponding to amino acids that are combined into proteins. It is these proteins and the timings of their activation, also encoded in the DNA, that are the motive spring of biochemistry; the action of the proteins builds all the rest of the biochemistry of the organism in conjunction with the chemicals and under the influence of the conditions (temperature, pressure, etc.) in the organism’s environment. The similarity to minimalism is obvious and need not be belabored for the smarter sort of modern person.6 The important question is how the basic elements of human concepts are encoded in the genetic code. The obvious answer is that this is the explanation of the supposed “junk DNA” or “non-
In an earlier study, this researcher took the “junk DNA” sequences as recorded by biochemists and compared them with the sets of basic concepts and ideas discovered by millennia of idealist philosophers and lesser thinkers to determine their respective codings. This left a lot of codons unaccounted for, which later research showed to code 897,435 previously unsuspected innate ideas.7 In particular, the coding for “UG” per se and for its principles was discovered by comparing the genetic sequences of such luminaries as Chomsky (pax eocum), Fodor, and Katz with the genetic codes determined through genetic samples (posthumously obtained where necessary) of Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayers, Rudolph Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, Nelson Goodman, David Lewis, and other victims of stunted philosophical development; the latter group were discovered to have variant supposedly non-
While it is safe to say a good deal of debate has ensued, (1) the critical response merely represents the dying gasps, or rather escaping plumes, of punctured bags of hot air,10 and (2) in any case the debate is far above the mental acumen of this journal and its readers. Therefore, this article will eschew further review of real science and of the debate concerning the same and instead discuss something more in line with this journal’s editorial policy and practice, bad fiction.
The more astute reader who somehow wandered into the shabbier sections of the reading room and found this issue might well ask, “Why? For Chomsky (pax eocum)’s sake, why, dammit, why?” The answer is that the researcher needed a mental break from more rigorous research, had tired of backgammon, and was feeling unduly charitable. Besides, real scholars won’t read it even if it’s listed in the researcher’s CV and regular readers of this journal won’t understand it anyway, so this article’s pure gravy. So, let us proceed.
We may take the following statements as axiomatic for our purposes: Writing is the application of the scriptual faculty to linguistic utterances. Similarly, linguistic utterances are contextually-
However, it is clear that no sample of writing can have an LF that is a one-
This consideration makes our choice of analysis compulsory. One might argue that the fact that Optimality Theory has been applied to everything in language is no excuse in and of itself to apply it here, but if Optimality Theory weren’t true it wouldn’t have been applied so widely. Clearly, then, we must apply Optimality Theory to prose evaluation. The execution of this program is trickier than it might first seem, yet not so tricky as it might seem on further thought: Surely there are as many readings as there are readers, but, as contemporary linguistic theory teaches us, this proliferation of LF candidates is due solely to performance error and may be abstracted away. Once we have obtained an LF, it must be evaluated against standards of good writing, which obviously may be stated as a large set of constraints. It is in ranking these constraints that a sure lightness of touch, a léger de main if you will, is needed; fortunately, this is easy to program. The ranking of constraints obtained in this way can then be compared against a theoretical ideal ranking derived from first cognitive principles to indicate just how close a sample of prose hews to the requirements of good writing.
First, the researcher collected every guide to clear writing, book on creative writing, and progeny and epigone of Strunk and White he could find and over the space of several days collected every rule and tip therein specified.11 These were then classified by the level of prose organization to which each applied and reduced to a symbolic representation in this researcher’s pioneering ΔΤΧ-
As an illuminating example, the following representations of the principles of stylistic clarity on the syntactic level were obtained for various subclasses of adverbs of manner; all symbols are to be understood in the customary manner except as noted in this researcher’s monograph Regular Extensions of the λ-
[Ć↑hδ]æ(x, y) ⇒ [Θ♣(x) \ ℜ®(y, ξ|щϡ)]
©£[¶(t) ⊗ Ξχ(z), Ƹǘ(ἄ↕ᵿ), Ӝʱ{t0, ♂, ☺}] ⇑ Δt ⊕ ﻚz(ῢ) ⊥ 簧(z, t; ﭗ)
Ѭ₮(g⅝, pᾠ; 乾) ∠
る(f, k)13
ㅙ(Řt, ♫) × Å[ ॠ(q, j);
(ĥt, śn)] ⇓
∕ שּׂ(ὓd; ⌂)
In the end, a set of 47,976,542 constraints were obtained. The results were, like the majority of the works examined, not pretty.14 The most egregious violator of the mentally-
To investigate the question, “Why doesn’t everybody realize that this guy is lumpen-
To test this, the Amazon readers’ reviews for this guy’s oeuvre were collected, collated, interlinearly glossed, bracketed, indexed, spindled, bent, torn, folded, teased, pondered, poked, jabbed, looked askance at, dissected, reanimated, and examined for regularities, all with very fine-
Such analysis yielded the very interesting regularity that many of the one-
Truly this was a remarkable result! What could explain it? It’s not that any one of his books is any less wretched than the others, for this study found that all of his books are equally horrible in all the same ways. Instead, it is only a question of the order in which a Gentle Reader is exposed to them. Clearly, that is, there is a sort of mental immune system at play: On first exposure, the novel slips through the Gentle Reader’s usual defenses, but that suffices for the mind to produce antibodies that cause an immediate allergic reaction upon later exposure.
To examine the consequences of this earth-
So yeah, we’re doomed...unless we do something about it. In the first clinical study directed towards treating innate bad literary taste, the exact allergic reactions to this guy’s output were determined as follows: (1) A sample of one-
However, research certainly couldn’t stop there; that would merely allow all the members of the reading public to like something that is very, very bad for them. While this would also boost readership of this journal and thus increase the prominence of this researcher’s work, it was realized victory on those terms would be both empty and pyrrhic, and if there is one thing this researcher opposes, it is empt-
While the details of the program of treatment need to be worked out for all the authors in greatest violation of the constraints of good literary taste, the general lines to be taken by public health institutions are clear: The respective allergenic substances need to be administered in tandem with a new program of prophylactic high school English in which only bad authors will be read. This will immunize an entire generation against bad literature, after which we may assume the book market will automatically respond to the changes in demand due to universal enlightenment. Other measures will be held in reserve in case this doesn’t work.
To the better sort of reader, any conclusion would be superfluous. To the regular reader of this journal, it would be pointless.
1 Corresponding address: Mongo Yalbag, c/o Bill’n’Jake’s Tire Repair, 412 Real Slim Shady Blvd., Bugsplatt, AK 71427; upyoursquine@yahoo.com.
2 The interested reader is directed to Yalbag, M. (2014). “Up yours, Quine: On UG as the universal salva veritate,” Speculative Logician 7(3):16–56, and is also urged to introspect deeply.
3 Certain speculative purveyors of putative truths on Usenet have been accused of seeing a trinity in every triad and thus of mixing medieval Scholasticism with numerology. It is unclear to me why this seems to have been intended as insulting.
4 More precisely, a comprehensive semantico-
5 Mispronounced [zuw]-ology, of course.
6 Who is, of course, the only sort of person one would expect to have read this far. This researcher therefore predicts from first principles that the editors of this journal have not read this far, and thus that this footnote will remain unchanged, including the statement that Trey Jones and Keith Slater receive major kickbacks funnelled through an account at a leading Cambridge, MA, financial institution to soft-
7 Yalbag, M. (2012). “An experimental determination of the genetic encoding of the innate elements of human thought,” Speculative Generativist 5(1):2–463; Yalbag, M. (2012). “A lexicon of the genetic encoding of the innate elements of human thought,” Speculative Generativist 5(2):2–673.
8 Yalbag, M. (2012). “The genetic cookbook for philosophy: The identification of the non-
9 Yalbag, M. (2012). “Dietary, breeding, and culling suggestions for the amelioration and elimination of stunted philosophical development,” Speculative Sociologist (Special Issue on Scientific Intervention in Society) 16(4):4–76.
10 For example, one critic wrote that if the theory is true, then the whole project is simply encoded in the genes and therefore has no warrant for truth. If so, then by the same argument their response is also encoded in the genes, and not only does it therefore also have no warrant for truth, it contradicts itself. QED.
11 The following books were used: Strunk and White; Violet Fuchsia, Purple Prose Composition for the Blue-
12 For further details, the interested reader should refer to Mongo Yalbag (2012), “A cookbook of spicy concoctions for the mind: On certain extensions of the standard λ-
13 Note, as queried by an anonymous reviewer, that this statement does not read: Ѭ₮(g⅝, pᾠ; 亁) ∠ る(f, k). This latter would of course absurdly imply the grammaticality of such sentences as *John loped rambunctiously and the most common reading of *The cat had the runs discharge-
14 This part of the study has been in press at three different publishers, but each publisher has gone bankrupt and its staff moved to Mexico without comment or forwarding address before it could be published, which just shows the lengths to which the lit-
15 Name omitted, as the identity is less important than the conclusions, and upon the urging of Speculative Grammarian’s legal advisors. Thus, said author is henceforth usually referred to as “this guy.”
16 Name omitted at the insistence of the Speculative Grammarian legal advisors, who this time didn’t even bother arguing that the identity is less important than the conclusions. Speculative Grammarian needs to get better legal advisors.
17 Name not omitted on the grounds that she writes genre fiction.
18 Not to be named so as to better ensure unhindered publication.
19 Using special “feminocentric discourse-
20 This assumption was tested by examining the relative rankings given for a selected sample thereof to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, Stephen King, and Grace Metalious. Q, as they say, ED.
21 That is, the researcher clicked on the reviewer’s profile and followed up other links, and when necessary tracked down the reviewer in real life and secured an interview by hook, crook, or vague threat involving same.
22 Here and henceforth the names of novels under consideration have been replaced by sufficiently distinct pseudobiblionyms.
23 For confirmation, contact Philendra Q. Vigormortis at pqvluvzcats@earthlink.net.
24 For confirmation, contact Kelli K. Clubfoot at justinbieber4eva@aol.com.
25 Yet, upon introspection, what clearly would have been expected, were we only as clever as our unconscious minds and unexamined innate ideas.
26 Defined as three stars and above. This figure perhaps overstates the positive reactions to the oeuvre, since it includes such gems as “This seller rilly got the buk to me fast, and there was only slite damiges to the cuver” and “I’m giving this book 5 stars because it totally bites,” to which there were 34 replies asking if the commenter knew 1 star = bad, 5 stars = good, to which she replied, “Eh, whatevs.”