key-word signatures

from time to time i play language games with myself. for example, take any two words out of that sentence, and it's ridiculous.one of my  favorites is what i guess you'd call 'exclusionary language.' you may know it in the vernacular, 'don't say "shit" in front of this person,' or, 'don't say "shit" until they say "shit" first.' pardon my english. i was once challenged to not swear for a week by a friend whose religious beliefs dictated this or that given combination of phonemes was 'bad'. easy-peasy.the next logical step, it seemed to me, was to remove all religious language from my vocabulary for a while. that was much harder; it's everywhere. in addition to the more straightforward stuff like 'pray,' 'holy,' 'hell,' 'church,' you had derivatives like 'good' (from god), 'holiday' (holy day), and, technically, all the biblical names. it was good fun. i thought it was good fun. you've read this far, may as well finish.sports is similarly difficult to religion for this game. that vocabulary was more ingrained in me than the religious, on account of being brought up in a big anaheim angels family.when i grow up, i want to be able to speak without using the letter e. check it out.when i grow up-er, i'll remove all musical terms. but not today.in a discussion about this recently, i figured out that what i was effectively doing in language was the same as musically modulating from my home key to a different key center. if we never played games like this, it would be like only playing music in g major. nothing against g major, but it's both fun and effective to throw in a minor 3rd or raised 4th once in a while. watch: whale blubber.