Now I've Learned My ABCs, Tell Me What To Do With These?

As part of my ongoing effort to manufacture problems that may never actually exist, in order to deal with them calmly and rationally before they become issues, I must say that this whole Imus imbroglio has me acutely aware of a future festering sore (if I have anything to say about it).

I'm talking about the very real possibility of having our whole word designation system thrown into chaos.

I mean, we had the A-word, the B-word, the C-word... the N-word. Now, like pork (not the F-word meaning, the white meat meaning), we've got the other N-word, "n____-headed."

Oh and by the way, is there now an "H" word? Will there be Sunshine "Hi-H-word Crackers"? And if so, what about "crackers"?

Hey, no sniggers, this is serious.

Anyway, you might say, "But Ted, 'nappy-headed' doesn't rise to the same level of intensity that the other N-word does, and besides, no one is afraid to use 'nappy-headed'- in columns, on radio, on TV, they're saying it everywhere."

Oh yeah, you just wait. Those who are using it know the score - that they better cram in all the "nappy-headed"s they can right now because as they say in sale ads, "Once they're gone, they're GONE!" When this thing is history, you try saying "nappy-headed" in a crowded hair salon and see how quickly you're "Afro Sheened."

Getting back to the point I'm trying to make, when they devised the system, didn't anyone realize that there might come a day when there would be more than one bad word per letter?

An asterisk won't work. I mean, N* might be OK in print, but you can't be on the air saying, "He used the "N asterisk" word. People will think you're an asterisk, if you know what I mean?

Besides, we might have to later use multiple asterisks, and that gets downright ridiculous: "He said the N-word with three asterisks, Larry"

Larry: "I'm on the verge of Alzheimer's, caller, and you want me to decipher which one that is?"

And N² is the same way - works in print, but if you say "the N squared word" on TV, it makes the second N-word seem way worse than the original one, and I don't think anyone wants to make "nappy-headed" the new N word and relegate the original (and still the best) N-word to second class status, do you?

Likewise, "Ni" and Na" would differentiate well enough, but that's still awkward, and I'm sure some people will feel that saying "the Ni-word" is a little too close to saying the actual word.

We could make up a whole bunch of euphemisms like we've done with the D-word - schmeckel, unit, member, putz, schlong (which I personally think is worse than the D-word, but what do I know)... oh wait, we've already done that, and all the substitutes for the Big N are unacceptable too - unless they're said by Ns themselves, that is.

So what's a politically correct non-racist who nevertheless has a need to refer to blacks derogatorily to do? And what would serve as an acceptable substitute for "nappy-headed" anyway, "corkscrew head?"

Hey, you might think all this is trivial or absurd, but it kept me awake last night. This is what happens when systems are devised by bureaucrats and not scientists. And like the Internet, steps need to be taken now to avoid future congestion.

We could assign this latest N-word to a seldom used letter like "Q" or "Z," and I suppose that would work well enough as an interim fix. Of course, some re-education would be necessary, but that's what bureaucrats do and do well.

So I say "Z-word," you think "N-word... no, not that one, the other one."

If it seems complicated, remember that your brain processes the information so fast that the delay is less than bouncing your voice off the satellite. If you don't believe me, try it yourself.

The long-term solution may lie in such things as the Greek alphabet, Arabic chicken-scratch, algebraic equations, or the metric system, but I'm betting on China. I don't know how it works, thank God, but I know their language has thousands of characters.

So emulating Chinese, from where I sit, is just the ticket. It should be able to accommodate bunches of N-words, F-words, etc. Then you can take to the airwaves with confidence and say, "shen shwa" or something like that and that's completely different than "shen shoo". But everyone will know the "shen" part means you're referring to "N" something, and the "shoo" part designates which one - unless you're just sneezing.