It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to
attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they
primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or
gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations
on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary
between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at
slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which
kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of
them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all
invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other
worlds.
What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any
theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet
it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural
linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it
and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of
profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their
time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a
bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners
spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.