Dominique Bouhours
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“I owe her a debt of gratitude. Her invention has allowed countless like myself to be able to speak and be understood, even in passing, such as yelling at sunday drivers in traffic.”
~ Oscar Wilde on Dominique Bouhours
“I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct.”
~ Dominique Bouhours on dieing[1]
Dominique Bouhours (born Dominique L'Enfant, on July 12th 1644, died July 12th 1702) was a famous French grammarian. She used her natural talent to think in a logical order to apply such a concept to language. She is now known primarily as the Mother of Modern Grammar. She also is often credited with deciding the order of the Alphabet, and later became a Superheroine. Her signiature weapon is her Mallet of SVO (Subject, Verb, Object).
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[edit] Before Dominique
Language, and susequently, day-to-day life before Dominique Bouhours was very different from what we know today. While most of the words had been invented, as well as the written forms, including spelling and punctuation, there was no standard as to which order they should all come in. The order words came in to express a thought varied greatly by region, town, person, time-of-day, mood, blood-sugar level, or even language.
For example, today we might say:
"I'm very hungry. If you would be so kind, please make me a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich."
Then, it might have come out as:
"HUNGRY WANT, ME: MOUTH. Please! Bacon? Bacon, POODLE Bacon; leTTtuce. Sandwich tomato. HUNGRY!"
Note: The flow of logic and clarity which is expressed in the second part of the example would likely be (for the time-period)that of a respected English professor teaching at Oxford University. Modern linguists and historians compare the speech patterns of those days to the noises made by monkies, chimpanzees and gorillas, except with words.
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Life
Dominique was born into a poor, but loving family, at the tender age of 9 months. Her father was a woodcutter, and her mother worked in the home. Her hometown of N'Existe Pas, France, was a town known at that time for it's hard-working, under-paid, seldom-hyphenated people.
When Dominique was old enough to understand language, it was initially believed that she suffered from a learning disability, because of her strange speech patterns. Those closest to her found that she often put words that were less important before words of a more immediate need. As she grew older, she had particularly become fond of using such words as "the", "and", "if", and "but" - all of which were almost unheard of at the time.
In school, Dominique was often teased and ridiculed by her classmates for her slower, more deliberate speech patterns. They found it highly amusing that she would stop for a moment to think about what to say, and would wait for others to finish speaking before speaking herself. Although her teachers initially patronized her, they slowly started to find that she was able to comunicate ideas with a minimal amount of arm-waving, leaping, and desk-throwing. It was standard at the time for a conversation to have a death toll, which was oddly absent when Dominique spoke or wrote.
[edit] Recognized Talent
It was in 1661, when Dominique was 17, that she met Gram Grahams. Gram was a 28 year-old English and Sociology major from England, who had come to France to help teach to the mentally challenged. Because of a misunderstanding due to poorly-chosen word order, Gram believed at the time that the incomprehensible babble in which the natives spoke was because of mass-retardation. He later discovered they were speaking French.
Gram then moved to N'Existe Pas to teach at the local school house. It was there he discovered the much outcast, Dominique L'Enfant. He immediately took a liking to her. He later said that he said that he was drawn to her obvious inferiority complex, her nubileness, and her attractive body, as well as her unusual speech patterns.
Working together, they began to map Dominique's more deliberate speech patterns. They discovered there was a definite consistency in the way she spoke and wrote: There was always a distinct subject, verb, and object. In this way, it was very easy to interpret what Dominique was trying to communicate, as she took the time to give an idea context and application.
Gram would compare her style to the way workers would build a load-bearing frame for a building, before attempting to add a second floor, or else the whole thing would come tumbling down, causing the deaths of many, many cockroaches. The workers might be hurt or something too.
Gram was fascinated by this style, and as he understood it more, he began to use it himself. It wasn't long before Gram and Dominique could sit down together and have a long, meaningful conversation. Observers would often begin to gather around the two as they conversed trying to understand the phenomenon they were witnessing. Often, the observers would become so frustrated they would hunch down on all fours, and begin to rapidly hop around, hooting, growling and yelling.
Sometimes they would become violent in their frustrations, pounding their chests, knocking over random objects, and slinging feces at the conversing pair. One time, one even ran over and grabbed Gram by the shoulders, shaking him. It was because of this that Gram called out with the historic line "Take your stinking hands off me, you damned dirty ape!" It was then the entire crowd froze in place, and simply stared at him in awe. They had all understood what he said, and the realization of this turned them all into the first followers of Dominique and Gram. They became known as the Dominique-Gram-rians. One of these followers was a man named Michael Bouhours, who became a close friend of both Dominique and Gram.
[edit] A Romance?
Because Dominique and Gram were the first humans in the history of the universe to have the ability to effectively share thoughts and feelings with each other, the two became very close. This has sparked the commonly held belief that a steamy-hot sexual affair started between the two as lovers. However, besides diary entries, letters to friends and family, photographs, public statements, interviews with press, poems, well-researched biographies, hundreds of essays, 4 plays and an oscar-winning documentary on the subject, there is no evidence to support this. Scholars choose to dismiss this romance as myth, that the people wish to see something that wasn't there.
[edit] The Following
Over the next 5 years, the Dominique-Gram-rian following grew exponentially. By then, most of the townspeople of N'Existe Pas were followers of Dominique and Gram's way of speech. Because of this, they were gaining the ability to agree upon things, because of the ability to understand each other. This lead to the unanimous agreement that the squalid, squat shacks they lived in were ridiculously uncomfortable, ugly, and hated. Up until then, each assumed that the others all liked them and didn't want to complain. They tore down those shacks and began to build a great building they could live in and store various nick-knacks, like their children's fingerpaintings.
They also all found that they thought the name of "N'Existe Pas, France", was stupid. So they changed their town's name to Canada. However, this change became short-lived when a small group of lumberjacks and beaver-herders from across a pond threatened to sue, claiming they thought of the name first. The town then decided to change their name to Louvre, France. Visitors from other towns would return from this newly made Paris with stories of understandable conversations (as well as the ability to tell stories of understandable conversations.)
In only another 6 years, the movement spread across the world, and people from all countries and languages were using SVO (Subject, Verb, Object). Unfortunately, certain groups in power were threatened by this rapid change in the world.
[edit] Tragedy
The rapid changes in the world had scared a great deal of people in power. A group founded by Jewish Leaders, The CIA, The KKK and Walmart came together to hire an elite group of assassins, they named The Cabal of Not Liking Dominique L'Enfant and Gram Grahams (TCONLDLAGG, pronounced "Tea-Conneled-Lag"). The initial group consisted of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, Stay Puft Marshmallowman and perhaps most infamously Firstname Middlename Lastname.
And so it was on that fateful 1672 morning that Dominique and Gram were playing Croquet with King Louis XIV. Dominique had just scored a touchdown, and Louis XIV and Gram were in the middle of congratulating her when suddenly the TCONLDLAGG assassins appeared out of nowhere. They shouted something incomprehisble (they were not Dominique-Gram-rians), and attacked. Firstname Middlename Lastname then shot Gram Grahams in the chest.
Dominique, in a sudden rage, clutched her Oversized Croquet Mallet and swung it into the head of Firstname Middlename Lastname. The scene was later described with the metaphor of taking an overripe pumpkin, filling it with brains, and then splattering it with an Oversized Croquet Mallet. The rest of the assassins were too shocked to continue attacking, and fled.
Gram lived long enough to witness this. The commonly held belief that his last words were "Dominique, I love you. I go now to bring word order to Heaven. Continue our work here on Earth, my love." is not supported by historians. Scholars hotly debate whether his last words were actually "PWNED!", "Oh shit.", or "That hurt." Opponents of the first two point out that they are sentence fragments.
Dominique was overcome with emotions, many of them sadness. Before she broke down and cried, though, she noticed the blood on the side of her mallet had formed what looked like the letters "SVO", which stood for "Subject, Verb, Object". She took this micracle as a divine sign from Captain Picard that she was meant to continue in her quest to bring word order to the world.
After this incident, Dominique was never seen without her Mallet of SVO. Some historians believe she may had accidentally superglued it to her hand. Other historians point out that these historians are morons, because it is common knowledge that the Mallet of SVO is immune to adhesives, but not conjuctions.
[edit] Grammar
After Gram Graham's death, Dominique asked her followers, in the memory of her lover partner, to change the name of the following from Dominique-Gram-rians to the Gramrians. They misheard her, and renamed themselves "The Grammarians".
It wasn't long before the Grammarians demanded some sort of bible, as most could understand the basics of sentence structure, but would often quarrel amongst themselves about semantics. Dominique had earlier begun work with Gram on a book about their ideas, and so decided to continue it in his name. To make sure no one read it before it was ready, she used the working title "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda".
After over two years of work on it, Dominique unveiled the 5-page (double sided) pamphlet "The Rules of Grammar". It was an instant hit, and sold 20 million copies, earning 5 million dollars.
[edit] Later Life
Dominique took her 5 million dollars and used it to live easy for a long time. She would often attend writer's conventions, and whomp poor writers over the head with her infamous Mallet of SVO.
During this time, Michael Bouhours, a longtime friend of Dominique, returned from his missionary work in America. He had been teaching the savage native New Yorkers about Grammar. It is said he missed the foul-smelling hills of France, and took a boat across the small pond that separated the two countries to return to his homeland.
When he met with Dominique, they had a hot, steamy sex day in and day out, non-stop for several days, with Dominique moaning well-constructed sentences of pleasure that disturbed the neighbours fell in love and had a nice, quiet wedding on a hilltop, and thus, Dominique L'Enfant took on the name history remembers her as, Dominique Bouhours.
[edit] Death
In the later part of her life, Dominique had been struggling with heart problems. 2 months before her 58th birthday, doctors told her she had little time left. On July 12th, 1702, her 58th birthday, she passed on when a meteor slammed into her house.
Michael walked into the livingroom that day to find her staring out the window. When he asked, "What's wrong?" She replied, "I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either expression is correct."
[edit] Notable Followers of Dominique Bouhours
- Gram Grahams
- Michael Bouhours
- HAL 9000
- Jesus
- Gene Roddenberry
- The Computer voice from the USS Enterprise.
[edit] The UN Irony Convention
In the early 2000, the UN held a major convention about a topic which was currently plaguing publishing companies and web sites worldwide. The problem was that any time someone attempted to write a biography or website article about Dominique Bouhours, it invariably had some grammar mistakes somewhere in it. Purists would call these mistakes an affront to the accomplishments of Dominique Bouhours. Others simply laughed at the irony. The UN ruled in favour of having anyone who complained about these mistakes summarily executed. Those who simply laughed at the irony, or better, corrected the mistakes, were to be congratulated.
