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musing : zogI usually use the word "zog", or variations of it, as an alias wherever possible. I'm not the first person to use it, and I probably won't be the last. Every so often, somebody asks me why I use it, or where it comes from. One popular use of the word "zog" as a noun is to address something very unusual, or so crazy that it invites ridecule. For example:
Calvin and Hobbes put this metaphor into perspective. 
A slightly more historical occurance of the word "zog" appeared around the start and middle of the 20th century. In 1922, Ahmet Zogu assumed the position of Prime Minister of Albania. Having won elections for National Assembly in 1924, Zogu survived both a financial scandal and an assasination attempt, although later stepped down and fled to Yugoslavia. He was returned to power with the backing of the Yugoslav army. In 1928, Zogu convinced the parliament to dissolve itself, Albania became a kingdom, and Zogu became Zog I, "King of the Albanians." Zogu permanantly fled to Greece in 1939 as Mussolini's Italian troops invaded. This historical stuff is interesting enough, but it has absolutely nothing to do with my preferred alias. It's usually useful to know a little random history, though. Luckily, we live in a subjective world of metaphors. With some tinkering, words in the English language - even those not in the English language - can be made to do wild, wonderful, and sometimes very stupid things. Of the less sensible variety, 5000 years from now the word zog will have no direct translation to the English language, or any other language as we know it. In effect Zog will mean everything! We won't even need to know any other words - ever. Anything anyone ever wanted to say will be able to be conveyed by a combination of the word zog and an assortment of confused, random hand and facial gestures. ZOg zOg zoG ZoG zog zog zOG ZoG ZoG zog ZoGzogzog zogZOGzOgZoGzoG The word zog will be the foundation of world peace, specifically because nobody will be able to remember how to declare war, and that has to be a good thing. For reasons which are probably unrelated, it will also become the unofficially recognised symbol of global anarchy and unprovoked chaos in it's entirity. The actual language has not been developed yet, and it doesn't mean much without the accompayning random gestures. For this reason I will bore you no longer. The point is that in 5000 years, zog will stand for the compulsory dynamic application of singular lingual substance intended to drive people crazy. On the up-side, it will assist with the shortage of English teachers that is forecast to occur at about that time. This also has absolutely nothing to do with my preferred alias. My alias came from the alphabet. I like the letter 'z', I wanted a three letter combination for speedy typing at login prompts, and there are only 676 three letter combinations beginning with 'z' in the English alphabet. |
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