Bridging The Language Gap [FICTOID]

“There are only 600,000 words in the English language,” Senator Boone Doggle said sourly.

“Only 600,000?  I thought surely there would be at least a million.”

“I’m not counting scientific names,” said Senator Doggle.  “Those are the same in every language.  No, I’m only referring to uniquely English words.”

“Bu there are words we share with other languages.  Pagoda, for instance, or pajamas.”

“True, but those words have been adopted into English.  You don’t hear people referring to a common housefly as musca domestica Linnaeus, do you?”

“No, but why the interest in English words?”

“I’m building a bridge.”

“Pardon?  You lost me.”

“I said I’m building a bridge.”

“A bridge.”

“The Brooklyn Bridge, in fact.”

“I thought Brooklyn already had a bridge.”

“I’m building this one out of Legos.”

“Legos.”

“Right.  And every Lego brick will have an English word engraved on it.”

“Because…?”

“I want to use it to educate children.”

“R-i-i-i-ght…”

“But I need one-point-seven million bricks to build this bridge, and that’s more than there are words in the English language.”

“I see.  Have you considered reusing the words?  Make three bricks with the same word on it?”

“Why would I do that?  It seems wasteful.”

© Buzz Dixon