LEA - A critical look at the new lingua franca of business
By Mitchell Emeric, Professor of Linguistics, Howyadoin University
Today’s businessman faces extraordinary challenges in effectively communicating critical information to an often geographically dispersed and multi-cultural body of employees. Business at the speed-of-light requires the business owner to quickly convey his thoughts and directives as fast as the synaptic potential occurs in the brain’s axodendritic structures. In the past, many business owners have struggled with this problem, especially when the medium involved is electronic mail (henceforth referred to as “e-mail”). This particular form of communication has been the bane of the businessman concerned with efficiency and time-management. Studies have found that the average medium-sized business owner spends 16.7330209 minutes a day composing and reading e-mail. In real dollars, this represents a sizeable annual loss of $579...clearly, this is unacceptable. Studies conducted at the University of Bora-Bora have shown that it takes (on average) .00936 seconds for the finger to depress a computer key after the initial firing of the axon. Taking this information to its logical conclusion, it should be apparent that this represents a huge potential for time wasted, especially when e-mailing information that may contain hundreds of alpha-numeric characters (all of which are members of an equally inefficient 26-letter alphabet). This tragic scenario is all too real for many business-owners.
But do not despair. One man has taken the initiative to ameliorate this situation, and has become the messiah of efficient communication through his clever implementation of a grammar based on expediency. I am speaking of Grassy Lea of course, and his brain-child “LEA”. This form of communication has taken the world of commerce by storm, and has become the de-facto standard of electronic communication. Elegantly simple, yet possessing the intricate qualities of semantics, syntax, grammar and morphology like that of it’s more bloated brethren, this language is truly a wonder to behold. Rather than approach this subject in dry, analytical fashion, I have decided to jump right in and let the beauty of the language speak for itself...or,
I dcd toilet spkself
Stunning, isn’t it? One can sense the almost ethereal, unearthly quality that pervades this wonderfully pared-down grammatical gem. It is inconceivable that the business world suffered for so long without this tool. Jorgensen Gundersen Smith, President and CEO of Pretty Prophylactics, Inc., was faced with a sticky situation. He needed to address the problem of petty employee theft that was costing him thousands annually. The corporate attorneys had drafted a sixteen-page report of the problem, and Jorgensen needed to convey his concerns and implement an actionable policy of prevention and penalty; however, he needed to do this in such a way as to not offend the sensibilities of his more honest employees, and also couch it in neutral terms that would not land him in a legal wrangle should a disgruntled employee decide to take him to task for false accusations of theft. Rather than resort to the antiquated Old World methods of using plain English, Jorgensen decided to use LEA. He succeeded in conveying all the nuances without all the detritus of wasted words inherent in English. The full text of his message follows:
STO PPITNoW
Even now, tears run freely down my face whenever I read Jorgensen’s wonderful missive.
The world has been waiting for millennia for a man like Grassy Lea and his business solution. Will YOU be one of the successful millions to implement this solution for your business, and save yourself time and money? It’s a no-brainer.
By Mitchell Emeric, Professor of Linguistics, Howyadoin University
Today’s businessman faces extraordinary challenges in effectively communicating critical information to an often geographically dispersed and multi-cultural body of employees. Business at the speed-of-light requires the business owner to quickly convey his thoughts and directives as fast as the synaptic potential occurs in the brain’s axodendritic structures. In the past, many business owners have struggled with this problem, especially when the medium involved is electronic mail (henceforth referred to as “e-mail”). This particular form of communication has been the bane of the businessman concerned with efficiency and time-management. Studies have found that the average medium-sized business owner spends 16.7330209 minutes a day composing and reading e-mail. In real dollars, this represents a sizeable annual loss of $579...clearly, this is unacceptable. Studies conducted at the University of Bora-Bora have shown that it takes (on average) .00936 seconds for the finger to depress a computer key after the initial firing of the axon. Taking this information to its logical conclusion, it should be apparent that this represents a huge potential for time wasted, especially when e-mailing information that may contain hundreds of alpha-numeric characters (all of which are members of an equally inefficient 26-letter alphabet). This tragic scenario is all too real for many business-owners.
But do not despair. One man has taken the initiative to ameliorate this situation, and has become the messiah of efficient communication through his clever implementation of a grammar based on expediency. I am speaking of Grassy Lea of course, and his brain-child “LEA”. This form of communication has taken the world of commerce by storm, and has become the de-facto standard of electronic communication. Elegantly simple, yet possessing the intricate qualities of semantics, syntax, grammar and morphology like that of it’s more bloated brethren, this language is truly a wonder to behold. Rather than approach this subject in dry, analytical fashion, I have decided to jump right in and let the beauty of the language speak for itself...or,
I dcd toilet spkself
Stunning, isn’t it? One can sense the almost ethereal, unearthly quality that pervades this wonderfully pared-down grammatical gem. It is inconceivable that the business world suffered for so long without this tool. Jorgensen Gundersen Smith, President and CEO of Pretty Prophylactics, Inc., was faced with a sticky situation. He needed to address the problem of petty employee theft that was costing him thousands annually. The corporate attorneys had drafted a sixteen-page report of the problem, and Jorgensen needed to convey his concerns and implement an actionable policy of prevention and penalty; however, he needed to do this in such a way as to not offend the sensibilities of his more honest employees, and also couch it in neutral terms that would not land him in a legal wrangle should a disgruntled employee decide to take him to task for false accusations of theft. Rather than resort to the antiquated Old World methods of using plain English, Jorgensen decided to use LEA. He succeeded in conveying all the nuances without all the detritus of wasted words inherent in English. The full text of his message follows:
STO PPITNoW
Even now, tears run freely down my face whenever I read Jorgensen’s wonderful missive.
The world has been waiting for millennia for a man like Grassy Lea and his business solution. Will YOU be one of the successful millions to implement this solution for your business, and save yourself time and money? It’s a no-brainer.
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