Obfuscation
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Although I myself cannot claim to ever having attended such an occasion as to hear him assert anything as such, I nevertheless must maintain that I believe, beyond any modicum or iota of doubt in my mind, hitherto with such conviction as to state the following, that George W. Bush, insofar as one can be said to pay heed or feel empathy for a certain minority group, cares about every single ethnicity within the realm of reasonable possibility other than certain people, most particularly, and of doubtable coincidence, those of an African lineage.”
“A Frenchman once tried to obfuscate me from behind. Although I protested out of sheer principle, I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Obfuscation is not unlike the subjective condition of having had no one other than a certain individual, in accordance with the definition of the word, make it, in no uncertain terms, completely and utterly quite far from a reasonable level of ease to, for lack of a better term, understand, or rather receive elucidation as to what may, or may not have been (this matter, is of course, subject to debate, considering several metaphysical and etymological ramifications, but all in good time...) the original intention of the statement, in other words, a means of anacoluthic circumlocution, often being inclusive of what many would certainly come to a consensus to be unnecessarily aggrandized words, as well as having among its structure a superfluous amount of clauses and phrases contained in one sentence, deliberately constructed in such a fashion in order to possess the desired effect, which can be correctly deduced to be an effect of confusion, or perhaps an attempt of verbal subterfuge for the express purpose of escaping comprehension. Oh yeah, that's right, I just wrote a huge run on sentence!
Origin, or rather the Genesis of what is almost certainly the subject in question[edit]
For some reason it is near impossible to tell where this word came from. Even the smartest person in the world can't figure it out. Our best guess is that the word was uttered by a supreme being while He was gagging on a shrimp scampi, and the word was heard by the prophet named "5", who introduced it into the lexicon by means of an instruction manual.
The root word, "obfuscate" can be broken down to two components. The first part of the word, "obfu", means rabbi which means teacher', and the second part, "scate", means skate which means winter fun. Therefore the root word means "teacher winter fun" which, appropriately enough, is nowhere near the actual definition of the actual word obfuscate.
Early Usage, that is to say at a time which is decidedly much closer in approximation to the beginning of the universe than the time in which we find ourselves presently[edit]
Before the advent of a codified language, early man communicated by means of grunts and bashes to the skull. Even then, obfuscation was a common practice amongst the more sophisticated cave men. These cave men, who could be distinguished from regular cave men by their subscriptions to The New Yorker, would attempt to assert their superior intellect by means of obfuscation.
Typical conversation between Sophisticated Cave Man and Regular Cave Man:
"Grunt" -- Regular Cave Man "Grunt! Grunt, grunt grunt; grunt, grunt...grunt\grunt grunt 'grunt'!" -- Sophisticated Cave Man "Grunt?" -- Regular Cave Man "Grunt grunt-grunt Warhol Lithos, grunt (grunt grunta) grunt." -- Sophisticated Cave Man
Note the use of obfuscation in the above conversation. The mention of Andy Warhol Lithographs is a common obfuscative device. Of course, these conversations tended to end with Sophisticated Cave Man getting a face full of club courtesy of Regular Cave Man, but that's beside the point.
Continued Use, or perhaps the further propagation of a word that had been previously used, and would continue to be used in the future, a time after this particular point of reference[edit]
Ancient Romans would frequently visit Obfuscatoriums to indulge in excessive obfuscation for hours on end. Cicero was a common patron of such establishments. He and his buddies would meet and obfuscate each other in every orifice, then they would obfuscate animals, then children, then their wives, then each other again, then a fondue pot, and finally themselves. The specifics are much too graphic to merit going into detail, but suffice to say, the world has never seen a similarly high level of obfuscative practice since.
Around this time, The Bible was obfuscated, probably by the Thessalonians (jerks...). It was originally written as a pamphlet which contained precious few details about the candidacy of Yahweh Von MoJesus, and his running mate JoNoah Magdalilah. The pamphlet outlined a few of their key political agendas:
- Love Thy Neighbour Swingers Clubs
- Blaming all of society's problems on Sodomites
- Advocation of the forgiveness of hookers.
That was pretty much it. Then the Bible was obfuscated into the incomprehensible mass of jargon we know it as today.
Modern Practice, or blah blah blah blah.......[edit]
Today, everything is obfuscated. Every book that is written must be taken to an obfuscation house before it is published. Here are some original pre-obfuscation manuscripts of famous works of literature.
1984:
One day this guy ruled the world and wouldn't let anyone do anything. He was a control freak, and also a pervert. He installed video cameras everywhere and masturbated constantly while watching them.
Moby Dick:
"God damn, I hate whales, as well as the fact that I hate white things" said Ahab. Then he died.
The same practice occurs in film making, the screen writer's script is obfuscated by professionals such as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Here are some examples of original pre-obfuscated screenplays in their entirety.
The Godfather:
"Man this is a good orange", said Don Corleone. He enjoyed it so much he had to smile.
I Know What You Did Last Summer:
Jennifer Love Hewitt's tits look pretty nice don't they.
2001: A Space Odyssey:
"Oh look! There's a light blinking over here on this console...", said Dave.
How To Obfuscate Something[edit]
The art of obfuscation has only one requirement, that is for the obfuscator to be a bit of a dick. For instructions on how to do that, ask your mom. The following will be a step by step guide to obfuscation.
- Let's begin with a simple sentence: "Gramma stole my axe."
- Next we must identify our object, axe, our verb, stole, and our intellect pronoun, Gramma.
- Now we will identify the intention of the sentence. In this case, the intention is to frame Gramma for a murder we have recently committed by placing the key evidence in her possession.
- We are now ready to obfuscate.
- Take a break, have some casserole.
- First we will obfuscate the first word, Gramma, the woman who is of a most considerable age, but in good health nontheless, but who has had trouble in situations that involve (or in some very rare cases involving time and space, don't) one or more variables, and who has had a persistent outward dislike of the newspaper delivery boy, stole my axe."
- Repeat this process for each newly introduced subject in the sentence until you run out of paper to write it on.
- Visit Gramma in prison to gloat about your superior intellect.
Disambiguation[edit]
Obfuscation is similar but not identical to Obstruction. The difference is that obstruction is when you make something difficult to see by placing objects in front of it.
The following sentence is obstructed:
- The trees trees trees cow bushes shrubs trees tall guy with stovepipe hat opened a shrubs trees fog boobs savings account trees.
Notice how it is very difficult to see that the cow opened a savings account with all the trees, shrubs and boobs in the way.
Proper Use in Modern Colloquialism[edit]
Verb: "I just obfuscated your cat. Holla!!!"
Noun: "If my aunt had wheels, she'd be an obfuscate."
Interjection: "Obfuscation!!!! The counsel is witnessing the badger."
Supplication: "It is with magnanimous obfuscation that I endow these gifts upon your royal person."
Alliterating slang: "Of all the obfuscations in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
Reflexive adjective: "The obfuscation momentarily obfuscated itself before reverting to its prior obfuscal state."