It was Christmas Eve and Og was just about to fall asleep on his comfy rock pillow.

Suddenly, a chill wind swept through the cave, rattling his collection of human skulls. Og looked up. In front of him stood a series of ominous figures, shrouded in black cloaks. Og clutched his pillow in terror.

"Wooooo... woooo... wooo... I dare say, we are very intimidating ghosts, wouldn't you agree, Og?"

"Gh-gh-ghost?" stammered Og.

"Acute observation, dear fellow."

"Og no understand."

"Good heavens, lad, do you want to kill me a second time? There's a good reason I'm a ghost and not out clubbing antelope like everyone else! That "sentence" is clearly deprived of a verb."

"In fact, that is what we came here to discuss with you. I am the ghost of simple past. This is my younger brother, the ghost of present perfect, and my older brother, the ghost of future perfect progressive."

"Naturally, you must be wondering why we're here."

"Undoubtedly he is."

"We are here, Og, because your grammar is so mind-numbingly atrocious that it has awakened us from our graves. When you use verbs at all, you conjugate them incorrectly. You treat transitive words intransitively and vice versa. Words that should be singular for the rest of us are for you singularly plural."

"For heaven's sake, the other simians have already mastered sign language!"

"Og no want verbs. Og want be cool like Og homies. Og listen to rap music and death techno."

"Have you given no consideration to becoming a valuable member of society? To your education? How are you going to get into an esteemed academic institution without even an elementary command of the language?"

"Og become famous rock thrower. Og practice every day. Og get sports scholarship."

"A scholarship is good and well; yet, dare I ask what school will let you persist as a student without a suitable GPA? How can you pass your classes if you are not able to formulate communicative statements to your professors?"

"Og go to liberal arts school. Og feel good about self. Og get 'A'."

"This is fully unaccountable! Og, the future of the species depends on your ability to develop high level problem solving and linguistic abilities!"

" ' ' ' ' '."

"What?"

"Og efficient. Og replace letters with apostrophes. Og happenin'."

"I can't deal with this."

" ' ' ' ' ' ' ', foo'."

"Og, you numbskull, is it your goal to sabotauge the language unto its becoming useless and incomprehensible?"

"No cramp Og's style. Look, Og have bling-bling!"

Og had tied his pillow around his neck with some vine.

"It's useless. Human society is doomed. Perchance we might have better luck with one of the other species, say, the mice? Or the dolphins?"

"Indeed. It's evident that opposible thumbs are not all that they're cracked up to be."