Wordsearch

Fears are now emerging amongst linguists that supplies of a spunky yet innocent pronoun known and spelled as “the” is running in very short supply. Scientists postulate that due to rampant overuse, existing supplies of this proud and simple pronoun may soon be depleted altogether. At this point it is said by some that this word may be entirely extinct by 2008.

A word often first used by hunters and gatherers as well as shepherds, it first occurs in English language shortly after 1100 A.D., just before European invasions by wandering Groats and Smegyars from northern plains regions of Asia. Its use also faded briefly during years of Christian crusades, but reemerged strongly during between 1350 and 1402.

In regards to actual verbal waste, worst known offenders in our world today are probably teenage girls, due to their astonishing rate of speech; closely followed by lawyers, politicians, and actors. Contrarily, drummers, swimmers, marijuana smokers and, surprisingly, writers are least often accused of causing word shortages such as this.

As individuals, primary offending individuals come from all walks of life, but experts contend that Bob Dylan and Rush Limbaugh can be said to head up lists of most notorious transgressors. In addition, offshore holdings of many potentially extinct words are said to be held by wealthy mafia criminals, who use clever online transfer methods to shuffle verbal properties between accounts in Barbados and other islands and American bank acounts. This action only serves to worsen accurate estimates of word supplies.

In 1999, experimental legislation was enacted in Alaska which allowed people to create their own alternative words, but this privilege was recently repealed through court action due to conservative fears that such activity might lead to dangerous use of larger, “harder” words by underage users.