Much Ado About Nothing

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

“NOTHING is missing!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“We’ll have to tell the others.”

ABSOLUTELY and EXCLAMATION MARK looked at each other, worried. A missing word was unheard of, especially one as popular as NOTHING.

Both ABSOLUTELY and EXCLAMATION MARK had worked a lot with NOTHING recently. In particular EXCLAMATION MARK. Since the advent of texting EXCLAMATION MARK had been super busy, “LOL!!!” “OMG!!!” But “NOTHING!” was still a top-ten user for EXCLAMATION MARK, especially with teens and angry wives.

And although ABSOLUTELY was used in other contexts, it had a soft spot for the phrase “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” It reminded ABSOLUTELY of summer: “What are you doing?” “Absolutely nothing!”

ABSOLUTELY looked around. It didn’t seem like the other words had been listening.  

“You know,” ABSOLUTELY said, “this is going to cause a kerfuffle.”

“I know,” said EXCLAMATION MARK, “we don’t just lose words.  Words can disappear, but there’s a whole process to get rid of them once they’re deemed 'obsolete'.”

ABSOLUTELY shook its head. “But NOTHING isn’t obsolete. Not even close.”

“Or ‘archaic’ or ‘old fashioned’, for that matter,” said EXCLAMATION MARK. “It’s still a darn popular word.”

Both knew that, occasionally, words were taken out of the dictionary, but only after they had languished in its pages with the labels “hist” or “obs” or “arch” for decades or even centuries. A word could molder in the pages forever without ever being removed from the dictionary. Just look at BETWIX. No one BETWIXes any more, but it's still in the dictionary, only if to remind readers that it's considered archaic.

ABSOLUTELY had a friend, ANON, who was also considered archaic. ANON’s definition was “right away; immediately” but no one used it anymore except for the few people studying Shakespeare who took the time to look up its meaning. But it was still used, albeit rarely, therefore it stayed in the dictionary.  

And words could come back before they were removed from the dictionary. Both ABSOLUTELY and EXCLAMATION MARK had a friend, CRUMPET, who got a second chance at linguistic life. Originally, CRUMPET had meant “someone’s head,” but that fell out of favour and was rarely used. Then, for some reason, CRUMPET was brought back to life as a pastry: “a thick, flat, savoury cake with a soft porous texture”—a favourite in Britain. Then it got an additional life as a British slang word, meaning “someone who is sexually attractive.” It was also inducted into the Urban Dictionary, which was the height of cool. CRUMPET, once on the brink of being removed from the dictionary was living its best life once again.

And NOTHING was nothing, if not cool. It could mean, literally, nothing. Or something. Or as in the Urban Dictionary, “I can’t be bothered.” It was a declarative—Nothing! It was a noun, an adjective, and an adverb. It had it all. 

And now it was missing.  

“Words don’t just disappear. There’s a protocol,” bemoaned ABSOLUTELY.

The Oxford English Dictionary, where all the words lived, had a process for removing unused words. They had people whose job it was to jettison malingering words. Lexicographers (who were really just dictionary editors with a fancy title, EXCLAMATION MARK thought), decided which words were ready for deletion—an act fraught with angst (for the words at least). These lexicographers would rigorously study word databases, and examine the different mediums, both print and virtual, searching for dead words. And even once the lexicographers decided a word had to go, it still usually remained available in an online dictionary somewhere. It would always show up if someone looked hard enough. No words completely disappeared. But NOTHING had.  

“What are we going to do?” 

“I think we’re going to have to check in with Roget;s. Maybe NOTHING is checking out its synonyms in the thesaurus,” suggested ABSOLUTELY.

“I looked,” said EXCLAMATION MARK. “There were all the words that mean NOTHING, but no NOTHING.”

“WORTHLESS? NEVER? ZERO?” asked ABSOLUTELY, hopeful.

EXCLAMATION MARK nodded. “Even NAUGHT! And none of them have seen NOTHING for days.”

Not sure what to do next, EXCLAMATION MARK and ABSOLUTELY looked at each other.

“Maybe we should check the other words NOTHING hangs out with,” said ABSOLUTELY. "You know, the phrases."

“Good idea!” said EXCLAMATION MARK. “Let’s go!”

They found NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED.

“No, we haven’t seen NOTHING in a while," said GAINED, looking very sad. “I miss NOTHING. Without it, the only time anyone talks about me is if they’re discussing their weight.

VENTURED nodded. “Not too much venturing going on without NOTHING.”

They found GOOD-FOR NOTHING.

“Nope, haven’t seen it. I’m kinda getting tired not being mean. GOOD-FOR-NOTHING is a pretty good burn.”

They also checked with HERE GOES NOTHING, NEXT TO NOTHING, and THANKS FOR NOTHING. Same thing. They missed NOTHING, but hadn't seen it. 

NOTHING was the lynchpin for some pretty good phrases and colloquialisms. 

EXCLAMATION MARK and ABSOLUTELY were running out of ideas and places to look.

“Songs!” suggested ABSOLUTELY.

They checked with Nothing Compares to U, Money for Nothing, and all the other songs that had NOTHING in their titles. None had seen NOTHING.

“Movies?” suggested EXCLAMATION MARK.

“Sure, why not?” said ABSOLUTELY, who was getting discouraged.

They checked movie after movie, show after show—Nothing, Nothing to Hide, All or Nothing, and Nothing But Trouble—as well as about eighty other movies and shows. But no NOTHING.

“I guess we’re really going to have to tell the other words,” said ABSOLUTELY.

Neither really wanted to do that. It would cause chaos. No other word had ever just gone missing before. It shouldn’t be able to happen. It didn’t make sense.

“NOTHING’s an important word. It works hard. There are going to be so many people that miss it,” said EXCLAMATION MARK.

“Yeah,” said ABSOLUTELY. “Especially teenagers. They really use NOTHING a lot.”

“I’m worried about how they’ll take it. There really isn’t another word that packs the punch of NOTHING when screaming at your parents.”

Both nodded their heads, considering the mayhem the loss of NOTHING would cause.

“Hey! One last place to check before we tell the other words,” said ABSOLUTELY. “Let’s check with the other languages. Maybe NOTHING’s visiting its relatives.”

“Great idea!”

And off they went.

They checked with NADA, NIŠTA, NIC, INTET, RIEN, NIENTE, NICHTS and all the other words that were NOTHING in another language. They even checked the Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek words for NOTHING. Big fat zero. None of the languages had seen NOTHING.  

“We’ve tried everything,” said ABSOLUTELY. “I can’t think of another place to look.”

EXCLAMATION MARK agreed. “I guess we tell the other words.”

Just then, NOTHING strolled by.  

“Hey ABSO, EXCLAM! How’s it going?” said NOTHING, nodding towards them.

ABSOLUTELY AND EXCLAMATION MARK looked at NOTHING, stunned.

“Where have you been?” shouted EXCLAMATION MARK.

“We’ve been so worried!” shouted ABSOLUTELY.

“Whoa!” said NOTHING. “I was just visiting the plays.”

“The plays?” said ABSOLUTELY. “What plays?”

“Actually,” said NOTHING, “just one. Much Ado About Nothing. Which, by the look of you two, was spot-on!”

There certainly had been much ado about NOTHING.