Challenge #02579-G022: What the Feces?
You’re shit is an insult, you’re the shit is a complement. You’re not shit is a reassurance, and fuck this shit is not related to the previous phrases. -- Anon Guest
Humans don't have to be confusing, but they will frequently do it anyway. Their idioms, axioms, and expressions are many, varied, and assumed to be understood by everyone. This can hold true for some Human words, as well. Enormous papers have been written on the versatility of some of their ancient four-letter words.
One of the more popular was a synonym for excrement. It could describe the item itself, be descriptive of something awful, and simultaneously something awesome. It could be reassuring, and simultaneously derogatory. It's truly versatile and also truly confusing for newcomers to Human interaction.
Human Dru has often been asked for clarification when the offensensitivity filters have replaced idiom with scientific terms and removed any kind of inflection that could help a casual listener. For example, someone using offensensitivity filters would hear hir saying things like, "I keep telling you, this [excrement] little trick is the [excrement]. Like, the ordinary way is like [intercourse] this [excrement], but it's absolutely no [excrement] of anyone's noses. The guy who told me about it? I called 'em and told 'em, dude, you are not [excrement]. This thing is the [explosive]. It's top [excrement]."
It's difficulties like this that have caused many to dismiss Humans as simple or impaired. Some, though immune to strong verbiage, do not hear the tonal or contextual differences that make all the difference between definitions. Thusly, Human's casual conversations are made to become stilted and disjointed. This did not help the reputation of Humans in the Edge Territories.
Barbarians, some said. Barely any language, they said. No coherent way of speaking, they said. They only have a limited number of words, they said. They use one word to mean anything at all, they said.
Annoyed with all this, the Humans decided to fix things. Starting with the translation devices and the offensensitivity filters. They fixed them virally, rather than advertising that it was Humans who had made these changes. Like many insidious things, a little learning had a great impact.
Slowly at first, but with increasing rapidity, the translators and offensensitivity filters took the meaning instead of the literal translation of a Human's words as they spoke casually.
Thereafter, the filters would produce far more nuanced translations. "You're shit," would come across as, "You're disgusting to me," whereas, "You're the shit," would translate as, "You're pretty awesome." Every variant there could be was thusly transformed.
Almost overnight, Humanity became one of the most eloquent known species in the Edge Territories. All it took was a hack of the translation filters.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Azurita]
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The oldschool offensensitivity filters sound like comedy gold XD
You got that right :D