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} SCENE -- a dingy warehouse down on the docks. Crates from exotic lands,
} full of contraband, are stacked floor-to-ceiling. Several
} tough looking individuals, complete with tatoos and
} shoulder-holsters, are sitting at desks hunched over thick
} books. A man (WEBSTER) sits at a computer set up on an ancient
} card table.
}
} WEBSTER: (reading) "The jig is up, boys, they're on to us!"
}
} The gang jumps up from the tables. Some draw their guns and start
} looking around. Others beging to pack up the books and equipment.
}
} OXFORD: (nervously) "How many times did I tell you you should have made
} an anagram for 'anagram'!? But Nooooooo, you couldn't listen to
} me!"
}
} WEBSTER: Bitch-slaps Oxford. "Shaddap."
}
} ROGET: Anne, I vote more cards race Rome to Vienna!
}
} WEBSTER: (are you crazy?) "What?"
}
} ROGET: Marge lets Norah see Sharon's telegram.
}
} WEBSTER: "Well, that may very well be, but..."
}
} WITTGENSTEIN: "So, who wants to play a game?"
}
} Suddenly the huge main doors of the warehouse burst open. Dozens of
} police pour through, engaging in a running gun battle with the armed
} thugs, led by the SUPPLICANT.
}
} SUPPLICANT: "Feculent interlocutors! Your contemptable impedence to
} efficacious communication is at an end!"
}
} OXFORD: "Oh crap."
}
} SUPPLICANT: "From now on the word for a phrase that's the same forwards
} and backwards will be 'palinilap' or 'emordrome'..."
}
} WEBSTER: (sneeting, to Oxford) "Look who discovered
} retroreduplication!"
}
} By now the thugs, masterminds, and cops are all staring at the
} supplicant, engrossed in a triumphant mania.
}
} SUPPLICANT: (unheeding) "...From now on all words will be autological!
} And by law 'mana rag' must be a usable phrase! Now that
} we've found out your demonomanic scheme, your collective
} asses are grasses (or some such)."
}
} WITTGENSTEIN: "Look, you gibbering mass of linguistic crapulence. I
} find your procrustean attitude intolerable!"
}
} SUPPLICANT: "Huh?"
}
} WITTGENSTEIN: "Words are the way they are for a reason. You can't go
} around expecting an evolving, dynamic system to make
} sense or follow rules. Just learn to go with the flow
} dude."
}
} Supplicant considers, becomes unutterably downcast. Supplicant shuffles
} back out, followed slowly by cops. Webster, Roget, Oxford, Wittgenstein
} and henchmen are pefectly still watching them leave.
}
} As last cop rounds the corner, all burst out laughing
}
} WITTGENSTEIN: "I *cannot* believe he *fell* for that!"
}
} OXFORD: "You're still the king, boss!"
}
} WITTGENSTEIN: (hardened) "OK, enough bull! We've still got a lot of
} work to do! I want ten new heterologic words by the end
} of the night!"
}
} ROGET: "You owe the Oracle the meaning of the phrase 'esarh peht fog
} Nina aem eh tel car oehtew ouoy'!"
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![[IO]](https://kinzler.com/picons/db/domains/org/internetoracle/unknown/face.gif){kind=small}
