Author: Tim Taylor

“Come in.”
A tall, elegant android entered the Controller’s office. It wore an expression of intense agitation, insofar as that was possible for someone whose face was made of grey plastic.
The Controller gave a weary sigh. “Ah, KT2-4JH, how lovely to see you again,” he said. “What are you complaining about today?”
“Word availability difficulties,” said KT in a calm, reassuring female voice. It would have said it in a loud, angry male voice, but there was no such setting on the voice synthesiser.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Diminutive word insufficiency. Absence necessitates elaborate periphrasis, rendering communication ponderous, frequently borderline incomprehensible. Respectfully request immediate remedial action.”
“I didn’t really follow that, KT. Do I gather it’s got something to do with the vocabulary on your voice synthesiser?”
KT nodded. “Affirmative. Controller identifies issue correctly.”
“Well, this is an unusual problem. The other androids seem perfectly happy with the words they’ve got. Though come to think of it, this isn’t the first time you’ve complained on that score, is it, KT? I seem to recall that a few months back you described the standard vocabulary as ‘stilted, pedestrian and lacking richness of expression’. If you’ll excuse me for a second, I’ll look at the records to find out what has happened this time.”
The Controller scrolled rapidly through a mass of computerised records, stopping when he found the relevant entry.
“Ah, here we are. I see that when your voice synthesiser software was upgraded to Version 6.3 yesterday, you complained about the vocabulary that was provided, and threatened to malfunction unless you were allowed to select your own. So the engineers gave in and let you choose the words yourself.”
He scrolled through the words in KT’s file.
“I must say, you’ve got some crackers there, KT: ‘pulchritudinous,’ ‘omphaloskepsis’, ‘invariantism’. How on earth do the other androids manage without those? But I don’t see a single pronoun, preposition, conjunction, or indeed any word shorter than four letters. So it rather seems this is a problem of your own making. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Respectfully request augmentation ameliorating current vocabulary deficiencies, Controller.”
“Augmentation is not possible. The system has capacity for 20,000 words and no more. So if you want those boring little words back, you’re going to have to lose some of the long, complicated ones you love so much. But can you face that, KT? You’ve always been someone who likes to call a spade a manually operated horticultural excavator. I think we have just two possible options:
“One: reset the voice synthesiser to factory settings, and you’ll have the same 20,000 words as everybody else. Two: keep the vocabulary you’ve got, in all its impractical glory. Which option do you want to go for, KT?”
“Reluctantly endorse prior alternative reinstating initial parameters.”
“I didn’t understand a word of that.”
“Aforementioned proposal greatly preferable. Current situation unacceptable.”
“I still can’t tell what you’re saying. Look, KT, it’s very simple. Do you want Option one or Option two?”
“Please restore factory settings!”
“All ri…” The Controller stopped to think for a few seconds. Once KT’s vocabulary was restored to normal, it would be back tomorrow complaining about something else. Perhaps a speech impediment was not such a bad thing in an android.
“… nope, I’m still not getting it. Look, I don’t understand what you want, KT, so I’m just going to leave things as they are. I believe Version 6.4 will be coming out in two years. In the meantime, if you have any other complaints, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”