An Immodest Proposal
by Mudak
Chapter 4
Vanessa met Chandra in their cafeteria for dinner that night.
“So anyway, Justin’s got this awesome office. And I—“
“Wait a sec, Vanessa,” scolded Chandra. “I think we should probably call him Professor Wells or something like that.”
“But he introduced himself to us as ‘Justin’.”
“Yeah, but then we learned he’s more than just, er, Justin. He’s our teacher, not some guy you met in a bar.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Vanessa diverted her eyes for a moment.
“So what’d you go down to his office for?”
“Oh! I, um... I didn’t quite understand what he meant by saying we’ve got lazy tongues.”
“I was wondering about that myself. What did he say?”
“He said that speech tends towards easier sounds than more difficult ones and, over time, the pronunciation of words can and will change. But the old way of spelling will linger longer. And it’s not unique to the English language. He talked about how most consonants aren’t pronounced at the end of French words and how Russian vowels pretty much all sound the same.”
Chandra nodded her head, listening to her friend.
After a short pause, Vanessa said, “You take a look at the syllabus? Next week’s topic seems kind of... mysterious.”
“I did, but I don’t remember what it was supposed to be about.”
“Seven Important Wurdz, spelled W-U-R-D-Z, of course.”
“Of course. Which seven words?”
“Dunno.”
“You didn’t ask him when you were there?”
“I didn’t think to. Let’s keep it a mystery.”