Linguistics As a Speed Sport

            (I refuse to actually start meeting my declared schedule.)

            Once again, I’ve started writing a post for this blog roughly four hours after noticing that I should’ve done it two hours ago, and roughly three days before actually finishing it. And once again, I have absolutely nothing to write about. I could, theoretically, just start writing about whatever happens to cross my mind, but the last time I tried that, my computer inexplicably started displaying static images of what I presume to be hell for an unnervingly long period of time. I’m still not sure where the pentagram button is on my keyboard, but darned if I wasn’t able to type it anyway. So stream-o’-consciousness is out of the question. Instead, I’m going to try to write about a subject that I know absolutely nothing about. So I flipped to a random page in Wikipedia, and discovered the subject on which I’m going to enlighten the unenlightened people who are unenlightened:

            Smelting.

            It would be the rational decision to read through that article before discussing it, so of course I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to write as much as I can about smelting while actively ignoring any knowledge of the subject. I’ve taken precautions against having prior knowledge of smelting by inhaling enough paint fumes to kill three horses and a smallish armadillo, along with handing a sledgehammer to a muscular gentleman and implying some uncomfortable things about his mother. So I’ve completely forgotten everything about smelting, along with everything about smiling, smoldering, and how to inhale through my nose, so I should probably finish this quickly.

            Alright. Smelting. What is there to say about it? Well, it begins with an S, and ends with    -ing, so I’m going to assume that it’s related to sewing in some way. No, wait, that’s too obvious- it’s probably sowing. Yes. That’s right. I wonder what exactly happened to the guy with the sledgehammer. Anyway, so smelting is related to sowing, the act of planting seeds in a fresh dirt field. But if that takes the S and the –ing, then where does that leave the letters “m-e-l-t”? They may look harmless, but what sinister role do they play in sowing that leads to the process of smelting? They form the word “melt”, that’s what. And what do you get when you cross sowing and melting? You get a demented old farmer throwing ice cubes into a recently ploughed field on a warm day, and that is what smelting is.

            Okay, so on reflection, smelting doesn’t seem so bad. I mean, what’s so bad about throwing ice cubes into the ground? Ice cubes are stuck-up snobs who think they deserve the space in the freezer more then you or me, so I think it’s entirely justified. In fact, I think we should expand the scope of this thing. Next time somebody takes your seat on the bus, I want you to pick him up, carry him outside to the first patch of dirt you can find, and smelt him as hard as you can.

            (I congratulate you if you were able to make any sense of that. I certainly wasn’t.)