Storytime: The Cost of Words

As we are at the horizon of a new change in communication with the vote on bill B87, I will take this opportunity to briefly summarize where we are and how we got here.

The invention of the printing press in the year 1450 saw the dawn of a new era in distributed information. Data was mass produced in printed form, making it easy to duplicate words once the author entered them into the printing system.

Similarly, the creation of the Internet during the 20th century led to further ease of distributing information to people across the globe, albeit still limited by data protocol (http, ftp, etc.) and language (English, German, etc.)

Between the years of 2416 and 2422, the ubiquity of the English language, the standardization of Data Transmission Protocol Version 5.0, and mandatory implementation of dataports on all global citizens coalesced together to form a singular method of human communication. Languages which once numbered in the thousands were now obsolete. There was only one language known worldwide; formally it was known as eDTP50, although it soon was called by the nickname eL, a back-formation of “electronic language”.

For the first time in history, all humans could freely communicate with each other verbally, with no need to spend time studying a “spoken” language. Although anyone with an installed dataport would perceive eL as “speech”, anyone without a functional dataport would not hear the radio waves flying past their ears. Obviously, a missing or nonfunctional dataport is tantamount to missing a heart or a brain, so such cases are treated as potential life-threatening conditions.

Due to various oversights in the financing for ongoing dataport healthcare, there was less than optimal funding for the continuing program, surgeries, and related research. In order to subsidize this cost, new legislation was introduced in 2428. Although hearing, reading, and understanding eL was kept available to all global citizens at no charge, available selections of messages in eL were limited based on “donations” to various eL agencies. Upon a child’s first dataport surgery, the entire vocabulary of eL was introduced to the patient’s dataport system for comprehension.

However, the individual’s output of eL was limited to a vocabulary of words pre-purchased by the parents, and upon reaching legal adulthood, by the individual. The legislation currently in place provides unrestricted and unlimited output of any words purchased (writing and speech, formerly differentiated as forms of communication, are now synonymous with eL output). For example, once a citizen has purchased a vocabulary word (such as “example”), that citizen is currently entitled to full use of the word for the remainder of his or her lifespan, and his or her dataport will be enabled to freely transmit the word, with the assurance that all listeners will already have the word in their input vocabulary.

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A commonplace celebration in families today is the selection, purchase, and use of a toddler’s first word. As of the 2460 global census, the popularity of purchased first words are as follows:
64% – dada/mama (or other term of endearment)
09% – yes (or variant thereof)
08% – no (or variant thereof)
06% – water (or variant thereof)
05% – food (or variant thereof)
02% – poop (or variant thereof)
02% – pee (or variant thereof)
04% – (other)

An individual’s purchased vocabulary selection is archived on central servers to prevent any loss of word selection; however, there are a few instances in which an individual’s vocabulary will be intentionally decreased. These cases are primarily isolated to convicted felons and others who have given up their personal rights. For legal purposes, these individuals are limited to only saying “Yes”, “No”, and a unique databurst which is used for personal identification (although not what could normally be considered their name – rather, this databurst is more akin to an inmate number). This “limited vocabulary language” is colloquially known as “Yes-No eL”.

As of 2463, unforeseen costs due to inflation, dataport maintenance and continuing corrective surgery have resulted in the proposal of a new law – B87 . Nicknamed the “Dictionary Bill”, it will take into account future costs of dataport usage, surgery, and operation of the central eL systems. Specifically, the bill proposes to change the purchase of words from one-time fees, to a yearly fee.

Although some have argued against such a system due to the increased cost of purchasing the vocabulary currently available, the yearly cost to an individual can actually decrease compared with what is in place now. Rather than being forced to live with a purchase for one’s entire life, an individual can review his or her vocabulary usage on an annual basis, reallocating his or her funds depending on word selection, predicted income, and other factors that were previously unchangeable.

In 2464, the proposed annual cost of words will be $0.25 each.