SCP-5734
rating: +146+x

Item #: SCP-5734

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: The thesis paper containing SCP-5734 is in a sealed document storage unit in Site-290's archives. Testing with SCP-5734 is not to be carried out at this time. 

Description: SCP-5734 is a constructed verb that exists in the English language, with a cognate in German. It means both "to confer upon/bestow/gift" and "to poison/corrupt".

SCP-5734 is incapable of being conjugated in any tense or form either in English or German. Attempting to do so results in SCP-5734 'correcting' itself to its neutral, unconjugated form. Furthermore, SCP-5734 cannot exist as a gerund.1 This anomaly affects all forms of SCP-5734, spoken, written and otherwise perceived.

Sentences that attempt to conjugate SCP-5734 are virulent lingohazards, classified as SCP-5734-A. When perceived by an individual that knows the meaning of SCP-5734, SCP-5734-A instances cause a breakdown of linguistic and semantic concepts and words associated with the sentence that SCP-5734 appears in. For example, a sentence structured as "I [SCP-5734] the apple to you" results in the deterioration of the concepts of apples, 'you', and 'I', with all three of the concepts being perceived as the same concept. This effect does not extend to individuals not fluent in Germanic languages.

SCP-5734 was discovered in the final thesis of POI-5734, ("Dorothy Bradbury"), a student attending ███████ █████ State University in Ohio, United States. The thesis, entitled "The Unverb: How I Broke The English Language", was read by several members of the English department at ██SU resulting in irreversible confounding, distortion and conflation of concepts such as "English", "university", "learning", "thesis", "falcon"  and "Canada". Attached to the thesis was an anomalous note written by Bradbury, made up of words and letters cut from copies of the books Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan and Jesus's Son by Denis Johnson, both of which are covered as part of the contemporary literature curriculum at ██SU.

And to think I was called poisonous. I came here in good faith, wanting to put behind the past, learn new things, become a proper writer. Instead, I find a bunch of bitter old men and women who couldn't cut it in the world of publishing and now fellate the corpses of Whitman, Brautigan, and god knows how many other hack writers.

You are poisoning the minds of your students by teaching them that old, dead white men are the height of literature. I have seen a dozen writers have their dreams crushed under the heel of workshops taught by egotists, seen poets burn their books after being taught none will ever exceed T. S. Eliot. Creativity is killed by the faulty faculty here, and I have centuries of bitterness built up for those who would smother creativity. 

Well, here is my sayonara to you unpleasable, sad excuses for professors. I [SCP-5734] you this thesis. 

Oh, and Thilo? I know you and your Canadian friends are going to read this and try to stop me. I know you'll have an antigen for it circulating by the end of the week. I don't care. Let me have this, they deserve it.

Your former student, 

Dorothea. 

No individual named Dorothy Bradbury matching the description of POI-5734 has been found in Ohio. Attempts to locate her have resulted in Foundation personnel encountering further, though less severe, lingohazards. 

Since this time, POI-382 (Thilo Zwist) has integrated a countermeasure to SCP-5734 into SCP-5382-C instances. While preventing further SCP-5734 corruption, this has not reversed the effects of SCP-5734 on the affected faculty members.

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