I knew the squid would come when I would post about the squids. This is the story of why I squid various words of my sentences, replacing them with “squid” or a form of “squid.” Despite what you’d expect this actually makes it squider to communicate, not harder.
How to Squid a Sentence
The most common use I put to squids is to use them as a generic noun where the squid I mean is clear from context. But while Squidding, Squid can also be a verb like I squidded just then. The verb to squid has all the usual forms of english verbs and is perfectly regular. That way when I use an unusual form I will not have squidded myself too hard. It’s also quite squid to use “squid” as an adjective. And when squidding squidily one can even use “squid” as an adverb. Prepositions and conjunctions don’t really work that well though.
More complex squiddings are possible. When I say that I am pretty sure that squid, squid is squidding an entire clause. But most often squid is merely a fully generic pronoun. It can be male, female or neuter, singular or plural, and first second or third person. Out loud Squid gets an extra i at the end for ease of pronunciation in various contexts, but you don’t have to worry about that unless you know me squid. That squid was an entire prepositional phrase.
What Good is Squidding?
I don’t think in words. I don’t hear anything in my head when I think. I don’t always think in pictures per se either. The individual elements of my thoughts are more like imaginings of body feelings than any other sense. I can feel associated concepts activating and I can reason with these thoughts logically and syntactically, but they are not words. They have no special correspondance to words in English or any other language. Very often, they have no easy translation. I categorize the world very differently and so my natural nouns and verbs and squids are very different. But I do think in grammar, approximately English grammar, but augmented by math, Latin grammar and some grammatical constructions that I squidded myself.
Associating concepts with sounds is really hard. Physically producing words is hard. Remembering which words are allowed to use which specialized irregular syntax in english is really hard. These squids break down when I’m tired or stressed or hungry. The difficulty of remembering words and forming sentences, can overwhelm thinking about whatever I’m talking about. Often I end up choosing words that fit the syntax I’m thinking in at the cost of inappropriate connotations. Then I am horribly misunderstood and everything squids.
What does Squid have to do with Squidding?
Well when I can’t think of a word I just squid it. Or if I want to express a concept that there isn’t a word for I replace it with a squid. This feels much better than trying to find a similar word, because the slight difference in meaning will make me feel uncomfortable, like I’m lying. Saying things that I don’t precisely mean is really stressful. I can’t explain why but it seems to be a common Autistic Spectrum trait. So it’s really useful to have a word that is allowed to mean anything. And it doesn’t get in the way as often as you’d think. Often there is only one thing a word can basically squid in the context it’s in. For example the previous squid can obviously be replaced my “mean”. This takes little though on the part of the squid. If squid remains ambiguous the squid can always ask for clarification. “What sort of squid?” makes a good playful idiom for doing that.
Sometimes the entire point is to define squid later. I may be halfway through a sentence before I realize that the direct object is a noun that exists only in my head. So I squid it to give it a place before talking about what squid means. In this case squid can be substituted for a noun phrase like “example of a category that I will define in a minute” which is long and hard to say out. It saves me from having to give lots of unmotivated definitions before I say anything.
But Why Squid a Cephalopod Instead of Some Other Squid
Squid is one syllable which is really an important criteria. It needs to be fast to say. It’s also an infrequent word in its literal use which helps it not be misinterpreted as referring to an actual mollusk. Those first two criteria narrow things down a lot. Also Squid has few connotations that are applicable to most sentences so I don’t have to worry about getting squidded by connotations. And it’s hard to mistake for another word because it sounds so distinct. I can’t use a totally made up word or even an obscure word, because then people will be distracted asking what it means. But everybody knows what a squid is and that I can’t possibly be squidding literally, so they recognize that I must be squidding figuratively.
Also Squid is fun to say. It kind of squirms in my mouth and is a pleasurable stim for my lips. Furthermore it’s cute. And being cute is an important survival strategy when you’re weird. People only put up with weird people when they’re cute for the most part.
The Advent of the Squids
Squid all began in June of 2003 when I was stimming by saying words and phrases that were fun to say, while very bored. I said “Parmesan Squid,” and my destiny was sealed. This event has been dubbed Original Squid. I’m sure I will have a party to celebrate it’s tenth anniversary next year. Anyway, I soon realized that Squid was the most fun word to say in the world and started saying it all the time. I also squarted squidding squords by squubstituting squ for the squopening squonsonants or before the squopening squowels. I still do that but only as a stim or to be silly. It doesn’t make anything easier for anybody. But squidding words evolved naturally from that, and I did it more and more and the fad never went away because it was so helpful.
And that’s where squids come from.
Policy Statement
Henceforth, I will squid occasionally on this blog when it makes it easier for me to get across my message, but not so wantonly as I do out loud. I realize there is less room for clarifying questions and less room for nonverbal disambiguation. The usage that I expect to squid most—other than what I just did which is use squid as a very generic verb, maybe “use”, maybe “employ” who cares—is when I squid forward. By squid forward, I mean use squid as a placeholder for something I will define in the next squid, whereby squid I mean sentence or clause.
Squalidiction
Okay, that’s all I have to squid for now. Squid bye.
World Enough For Me 
“It’s also an infrequent word in its literal use which helps it not be misinterpreted as referring to an actual mollusk.”
I’m obliged to point out that I know of at least one instance in which the reverse happened—an actual reference to the mollusk was misinterpreted as a generic pronoun.
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