The Stupidity of Double Letters

By Camoron

I respect language as one of the pinnacles of human achievement. It’s what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, and it is the reason people have been able to become the dominant species. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think the English language is incredibly stupid, or at least the rules they insist on teaching us in class.

My first issue I would like to raise with English is double letters. In small doses, they are ok. Sometimes it makes sense to use them, and the word would look stupid without them, or be pronounced completely differently. But isn’t having two double letters a bit greedy? Balloons may seem innocent, but you can’t trust them. Ordering a Cappuccino is indulgent, or any kind of coffee really. Getting a tattoo is something you will definitely regret. And don’t get me started on bookkeepers! (or what about the underling of the bookkeeper, the subbookkeeper? Now that’s just disgusting!) The list goes on, and gets more and more ridiculous.

Now while this words are kind of fun to play with, they are hell to spell. Even words with only one double letter can be hard to spell, because where do you put the double letter? It’s just unneccesary! Double letters are stupid, and don’t deserve a place in the English language.

Next on the chopping blocks is ‘these’ ‘little’ ‘things.’ While they are great for conversations, the use of the humble apostrophe for shortening two words into one is not something I am a fan of. It is not fun to try to fit the apostrophe in to this sentence. Do you write it isn’t fun? It’s not fun? It’sn’t fun? Actually that’s kind of cool, everyone should use it’sn’t. And that’s not even mentioning they bring down the word count on your essay by one each time you use one! Keeping your words whole, instead of chopping them into little bits and then stitching them back together like strange word-Frankensteins is just wrong, and should not be something English teachers force you to do. Words have rights too!

Finally, colons and semi colons. We were taught how to use these last year, or at least, the teachers attempted to teach them to us. While they look cool, and save you a full stop by sticking two full stops together (how counterproductive), they are the blight of an eighth graders grammar life. Not only do they look similar but have different purposes, they each have multiple purposes! I’m not going to try to explain all their purposes, because despite the efforts of my English teacher, I don’t remember squat about these stupid little grammar monsters.

Once again what was supposed to be a rant spiralled into a conversation about nothing (there it is again, the stupid double letter. Without words autocorrect, that would be spirraled). But hey, if nothing else, I hope at some point you use the word subbookkeeper, or it’sn’t. Because dayum those should both be words of honour in the dictionary.