THE SHARK CHRONICLES: 38TH POSTCARD

      Darren ran his finger over the front of the Pennsylvania postcard, studying the photograph of the Heinz Stadium in Pittsburgh. He favored the San Francisco 49ers, but there was no denying the Steelers had a great track record. He wasn't too sure about their throwback uniforms though. Made it a little harder to take the Steelers seriously. He sat down on his sofa, waited for Riley to jump up on the sofa. Since Darren had began reading the cards, he'd found himself becoming more lenient with Riley, out of guilt over Riley's obvious consternation at all the attention and time he gave the postcards.           Once Riley's head was in his lap, and the dog had stated his thanks, his affection for Darren and his greater affection for bacon, Darren turned over the postcard and was immediately surprised at the volume of words already written in the tiny space. He blinke-

LOGORRHEA MAXIMUS

            You walk in with a bemused expression. I fold my newspaper, and put down the pen I’d been filling out the New York Times crossword puzzle with. I shake my hand slightly to ease out the cramps threatening to tense my hand.

            Can I help you, I query. Upon your stammered reply, I smile and nod knowingly. I’d already surmised the gist of your confusion. So you can’t read the signs outside, eh? No, no, I didn’t mean you couldn’t read at all. It’s just- you’re not from around here, are you? I detect a Southern accent. Oh, Mississippi?  Did anyone tell you about our  . . . unique culture here? No? Not even at the airport? Oh you drove here.

            Well for first-comers, and even many people who visit more than once, it can take some getting used to.  It even took us native Pittsburghers some getting used to, you know.

            Well, I wouldn’t call it a dialect. Not anymore, not since the exprecipitation. Exprecipitation. It’s a term- combination of expression and precipitation. Basically, the day it rained words.

            If you got a little time, I can tell you all about it. Yeah?  Well then, here goes.

            The day it rained words, it was a spring day, April thereabouts. Many Pittsburghers can tell you the exact date, it’s like when JFK was shot, or when the Space Shuttle exploded, or of course 9/11.  Me, I just remember it was sometime in April.

            The rain itself didn’t really look or feel any different. But there had to be something in it. Had to be. How else could you explain the changes that started right there and then?

            The first real big change was when we started dropping our local dialect. We stopped saying “yinz”, but we didn’t even go to “y’all”. We all just started saying “all of you”. “Slippy” became “slippery”, or “slick”.  I cannot remember the last time I heard “nebby” or “n’at” uttered around here.

            Then we started talking differently. I don’t mean just the words we used. I mean the grammar, the pronunciation. I heard many of us just started bumping people off Facebook if they misspelled words or used slang. We were turning into a city of vocabulary snobs, and we didn’t even see it at first.

            But then our mayor started passing all these new laws with how printed material should be regulated, and we voted for it all. Then we started t o pay for it all.  I think that’s when we started noticing we had really changed. Who really needs a stop sign that’s three times larger than the rest of the country? We have the longest home games of the entire NFL because our commentators take so much longer now to describe the plays, we have our players just standing waiting for the go ahead to begin play again.   

            But we couldn’t stop. We’d all been exposed to the exprecipitation.  Our local scientists began to correlate the rainfall with the language changes when Pittsburghers who had been away returned to the city, and talked like they had always talked . . . until the next rainfall.

            Our children, they have no idea of what it used to be like. They’re even coining new words that make complete sense, when your break them down into their roots, yet these words never existed before in speech or on paper until now.

            It became a real problem for our tourist business, when we realized that there were major communication breakdowns. The same for conversations via phone or Internet.  But luckily, we have some really fine universities here, and it only took three years before someone came up with Converease.

            That’s right, nearly all of us Pittsburghers are on daily medication. I couldn’t really tell you exactly how it works, except it blocks certain neural pathways in the brain related with language processing, allows us to use vocabulary more in sync with the rest of the country. Of course, there are a few of us that refuse to take the medication, saying there must be a reason Pittsburgh was chosen to experience the exprecipitation, and that we should be proud of our linguistic superiority. Well, you know, whatever. Takes all kinds.

            So yeah, it takes some getting used to. Now, how may I help you?  Ah, you’re looking for the Monongahela Incline? That is an indubitably gratifying enterprise for the uninitiated. I possess no degree of incertitude that you will indeed be appreciative of the winsome tableau of our superlative urbicolous loci. Forthwith, I shall advise you as in the proper lines of collimation to attain your desired terminus.

            Your cardinal flection needs must be gerontegous on the thoroughfare denominated as Boulevard of the Allies, the-

            Your countenance manifests perturbation of significant magnitude, ergo I am necessitated to postulate that your deduction of my migratory elucidations is negated. Therefore I am cognizant of my requisite alleviating curative dram.  Remain you here but a proximate time, I shall rejoin you.

            There. That’s much better- sorry, I hadn’t realized I was late for my Converease dose so anyway- wait- where did you go? You must haven been too frustrated and confused. Indeed, with a rapid glance out the doorway, I see you striding away in a great big huff. You’ll find someone to give you directions, if you possess enough patience.

            Back to the New York Times crossword. Still my favorite way to spend fifteen minutes each Sunday.