Two mass shootings occurred this past weekend, just 13 hours apart, in the United States, leaving at least 31 dead and dozens more injured. In the wake of these tragedies, everyone from presidential candidates to late night hosts to seemingly half of Twitter have openly expressed their frustrations with legislators, who seem unwilling to do anything about gun violence in the US. 

Among those expressing their anger are lexicographers for the world’s top dictionaries. “It’s just so maddening to hear the same words repeated over and over again – thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers – without any intentions to, you know, do something about it,” Jeanie from Merriam-Webster told reporters. 

Originally posted on The Sirens Rise, August 8, 2019.

“So Hard to Sit There and Feel so Helpless”

As it turns out, Jeanie’s employers felt the same way. “It’s so hard to sit there and feel so helpless, while people who actually have the power to force change opt to do nothing instead,” said Jordan, an executive at Merriam-Webster and Jeanie’s supervisor. “My team and I thought that there had to be something we could do.”

Another member of Jeanie and Jordan’s team suggested that they reach out to their contacts at Oxford, who were wrestling with the same issues. Julie, a supervisor at Oxford, told us that, “by early Monday, I had dozens of emails from concerned staff members. We held a meeting later that morning to talk about what we could do.”

Reaching Out and Making History

After a brief conversation between both teams, Julie reached out to her colleagues at Cambridge, and history was made. Executives and lexicographers from all three companies decided to sit down in their off time to figure out how they could team up to make a change. 

“During this meeting, we discussed corporate responsibility and brainstormed how we could make the biggest difference in the shortest amount of time,” Jordan explained. “Of course, we know that lasting change is often slow, but these are people’s lives we’re talking about – there isn’t enough time to wait for McConnell to be voted out.”

The solution they came up with: to universally change the definitions of the words “thoughts” and “prayers.” 

Of course, representatives from each of the three dictionaries involved were aware that changing these meanings may be a controversial move, especially among philosophers and religious individuals. However, they ultimately decided that altering the meaning of those words was worth the risk. John from Cambridge explained, telling us that “people who really care about human life won’t mind a change in diction if it is done with the intent to help others.”

Finding replacement meanings was deceptively challenging. “These new meanings needed to be closely related to the original ones, but would also spur some movement on the issue – even if it is just people trying to hold politicians accountable for their promises or making them think twice about their word choice,” Jeanie told us. 

New Meanings

As a result of this solution, the word “thought” now means:

a carefully consideration of the situation at hand based on its facts, not lobby money; deliberation with oneself or others on the tangible steps needed to improve a situation, circumstance, or chronic problem

“Prayer” now means:

an action statement arrived at after giving a situation careful consideration or thought; a reflection on a situation followed by action taken to remedy it

A change to the meaning of the phrase “thoughts and prayers” was also proposed. When those words appear together, the new definition is now an expression of the intent to:

deliberate and enact rules, regulations, or other forms of legislation geared toward reducing the need for further ‘thoughts and prayers’

While oddly specific to lawmakers, lexicographers agree that they had to specifically target that group. “After all,” said Jeanie, “those are the incompetent fuckers who necessitated the word change in the first place.”

This article is satire.