Saturday, April 29, 2006

A saving of 75,000 pounds in that sentence alone.


I have the best box ever, a fruit cocktail of a box. It's early morning and the sun is just breaking over the rooftops. I think I'll get up in a minute. Well i've thought about it and I think i'll stay here for a while longer. I'm in a very thoughtful mood.

I'm reflecting on words, thinking about if words have a price, and sentences a cost? And if words have a currency then can speech be free? So how much is freedom of speech worth?

A twelve-year-old boy who spoke the words Paki, and Bin Laden to a classmate was sent before the courts. Three words. How much did each of those words cost? Well there was a judge and a prosecution, defence, clerks and social workers, etc, 60.000 pounds -my guesstimate. That is 20.000 per word or 5,000 pounds a letter.

Words then have a price. Therefore, they can be traded, and the rich can afford to use bigger words than the poor, and stock markets flourish selling syllables. Perhaps words should be rationed so every body has a fair share. A day when no one can use vowels, perhaps

nd nthr dy whn prhps th lttr Z ws nt t sd.

Well that's quite good, sort of readable and i've made a saving of 75,000 in that sentence alone.
So when is freedom of speech not free? when there is a high price to pay. So perhaps it should be called expense of speech.

My musings have cost me 5,960,005, mind you, I have been prudent, this blog article was going to cost 13,098,095 until I edited it, very good value for money. I bet even Dickens did not make that much per book. Just wait till I tell Dolly how much my word's worth.

Ferdinand, the famous ginger cat economist.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mw????

Um, I'd like to buy a couple of vowels, please.

Meow!!!!

Ferdi, you truly are an amazing cat! We all think so, even if some pretend not to be interested.

Ferdinand said...

Who, who's not interested? you just let me know and I'll send them a self help tape...

Anonymous said...

Well, Maia pretends not to be interested, but I spied her reading your blog over the shoulder of she-who-would-wish-to-be-obeyed. So HA!, Maia, pretend all you want, but I know the real truth.