Some Crossed Plus One Hundred Language Notes

An example of Alan Moore’s 2108-speak. Detail of Crossed Plus One Hundred No.1 Page 13, panel 2. Art by Gabriel Andrade

I had these notes at the top of the Crossed Plus One Hundred glossary page, but they were getting long, so I moved them to a separate page so that the A-Z glossary would be easier to get to.

>Go to CPOH Glossary
>Go to CPOH Annotations Index

General language notes:

1. There’s a lot of just slightly off stuff that’s very comprehensible but would have made my English teachers cringe. Perhaps this is AM suggesting that the schooling system has entirely broken down, so the language is breaking down too, and/or it’s just the way language sort of evolves/changes over time. Examples of slightly-off usage:

• “it colonizes urbs like this fuck quick” (the English rule-enforcer in me wants “quickly” when a verb is modified. Throughout CPOH1-4, there are very few words ending in “-ly”. I haven’t done a thorough search for this, but in CPOH1-3, the only instance is Robbie Greer saying “likely” – which is not actually an “-ly” adverb. Turns out Taylor does use an “-ly” adverb; in CPOH4, P7,p6 she says “We surely have.” Then, Kriswyczki) says “I did a brown, nearly” in CPOH5 P10, p4 – so my no “ly” theory doesn’t quite hold up entirely.
• “Tread careful, everybody” (properly should be “carefully”)
• “In Columbia, me and Archie Keller found infecteds” (properly should be “Archie Keller and I.” This is written by Future Taylor who reads a lot of pre-Surprise publications; she perhaps should know better.)
• “wolfs” (properly should be “wolves”)
• “it’s a definite possible” (instead of “it’s a definite possibility”)

2. There is also a lot of what I call the verbification of nouns:

• “it sads me up” (instead of “it saddens me”)
• “George was just rashing“
• “This jungling always surprises me”
• “christ me” (swearing – more or less “fuck me!” or “oh shit!”)

3. Anyone else notice that Robbie Greer speaks a little differently than the rest of the crew? Maybe “survivalers” speak a little differently than the general populace? Also, it seems like the way Future Taylor writes is a little different than the rest of the humans speak. I’ll try to look at this more soon.

>Go to Crossed Plus One Hundred Glossary
>Go to Crossed Plus One Hundred Annotations Index