SYN-GRAM-OBV/CRX: Freedom of (Corrected, Healthy) Speech

I have in other blog posts lamented and decried the imminent age of total surveillance. Third parties of various kinds will watch us on-line, in public, and probably in the home, with and without our knowledge. The day will come when deeply private information will be held against you while at the same time used to sell you something.

One new form of surveillance, however, is one that I think I will welcome: SYN-GRAM-OBV/CRX. That’s short for “Syntax and Grammar Observation and Correction.” Yes–the grammar drone.

As the Department of Healthy Human Services announced at a press conference yesterday, in a text surely to be derided by political conservatives as evidence of more Obama socialism:

A new generation of drones is coming, one that will pave the way for greater health and intelligence for all Americans. The Syntax and Grammar Observation and Correction drones will be capable of detecting malformed syntax and incorrect grammar in spoken American English from as far away as 250 feet, and can quickly respond by locating the ungrammatical target and quickly offering, without charge, an on-the-spot editorial correction.

By 2016, the 25 American cities that have a population over 620,000 people will each have 20 SYN-GRAM drones. These will deploy over those parts of each city with the greatest daily outdoor pedestrian traffic, including parks, business centers, conglomerations of bars, and public transportation hubs. The drones will have the capability to absorb the audio of hundreds of conversations and quickly offer grammar correction to the “target.”

Picture this:

You’re skipping along in your favorite public park, state-of-the-art headphones in place, when you sing out loud: “I can’t get no satisfaction. . .”
Seconds later, something buzzes up to you at eye level, and you hear a voice of coming clearly through the music: “Hello, fellow American. May I introduce myself?”

You see a sexy little drone, like something out of THX 1138, and the sight of it makes you stop, whip off the earphones, and listen as it says, “I’m SYN-GRAM-OBV/CRX Number 451, and I’d like to offer you a grammar correction. What you should have said is ‘I cannot get any satisfaction.’ Using ‘can’t’ and ‘no’ in the same sentence is a double negative, resulting in a positive. ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ means that you definitely do not have ‘no satisfaction,’ indicating that you do, indeed, have some satisfaction.”

Before you can swing at this meddlesome digital creature it rises high above you, from where it cackles, “DEVO’s version is better!” Then it zooms away.

Federal researchers, however, have a very keen reason for creating such a drone as it relates to Americans’ health: Since 1993, national rates of diabetes and obesity have risen 38 percent and 49 percent, respectively. These increases statistically mirror the increased substitutional use of “go/goes” and “like” for the verb “said.”

Ever since Americans began to abandon, in significant numbers, the use of the verb “to say,” or “said,” and replaced it with “go” or “goes,” or with “like,” diabetes and obesity have risen commensurately. When you have a person who says, “So, my friend goes, ‘Hey, did you see that guy?’ and I go, ‘Yeah, I saw him.’ And she’s like, ‘He totally checked you out.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know it”‘–that individual is, at minimum, 38 times more likely to have diabetes or be potentially obese than someone who would have used the correct conjugation of the verb “to say.”

That’s Dr. Ricardo Mahn-Töbhan speaking, a nutritionist, linguist, and SYN-GRAM programmer with the Department of Healthy Human Services. His two decades of research into the huge loss of the correct use of “to say/said” in spoken American English served as the basis for the creation of the SYN-GRAM drone program, which is funded, in part, by the legislation that created ObamaCare.

“We want drone outreach to every individual who says, ‘When the boss asks me to work overtime, I go, “Hella no,'” Dr. Mahn-Töbin said at the press conference that unveiled the drone program. “Research indicates that if you can correct the grammar, you can improve health. If you put enough drones in front of enough people, telling them ‘The correct verb is “said,”‘ you’re going to create good language habits that can underpin good health choices.”

NSA data leaked by Edward Snowden seems to confirm this. The last round of Snowden materials released by the The Gwardian newspaper includes a reference to a data-collection program called “Cauliflower Ear.” NSA microphones secretly hidden in the produce sections of Hop’n’Shoppe grocery stores across the United States picked up 89-percent higher correct usage of “lay/laid” than in the toaster-pastries section.

“If you make people think about how well they speak, then that has a direct impact on thinking clearly about their health,” Dr. Mahn-Töbin says. “Suddenly, words matter, including the words ‘diabetic coma’ and ‘aortic prolapse.'”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: An ordinance drone strike on an American citizen on foreign soil–that’s national security. A grammatical drone strike on a native speaker on American soil? Government censorship!

Not exactly. SYN-GRAM strikes are not an act of law enforcement. You don’t have to do what the drone says when it tells you that “irregardless” translates to “with regard,” and you’re not saying what you mean. Compliance is entirely voluntary.

But why wouldn’t you want to comply? More importantly, if you believe in law and order, then you must believe in a society in which correct syntax and grammar matter.

A society in which the ungrammatical do not go freely uncorrected.

[This dispatch brought to you in honor of le poisson d’avril.]