All your base are belong to us!

Somebody set up us the bomb!

All your base are belong to us is a phrase that sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002. The text is taken from the opening found in the English version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing, the translation of which was terrible to the point of hilarity.

Wikipedia EN – All your base are belong to us

I could discuss Internet Culture and how such trivial things can be made into the flagship of geekery. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t really care. All cultures must have their own symbols, and the internet just seems to be full of them. So every one of the “internet” cultures just have to pick a few of those symbols. Fine by me.

For great justice!

Actually, what I like in those antigrammatical phrases – apart from their deep pœtical qualities (You have no chance to survive make your time!, For great justice, What you say?) – is the way they introduce new, odd little things in the language. Depending on their success, they might even become “grammatical” phrases, since grammar mainly comes from the actual use of the language. Awful grammatical mistakes becoming subculture linguistic items. And then sometimes it moves from subculture to pop culture, and from pop culture to mainstream recognition.

What you say? Abbreviations, acronyms, voluntary spelling malformations, brand new words, obscure cultural references, and so on. If you look close enough – by roaming through the BBS and web forums, for instance –, you will see that they’re thriving. Sounds like the internet is making it easier to take on linguistic trends, and to initiate new ones. I like that. A lot.

You have no chance to survive make your time!

Don’t forget to check out the official All Your Base video site. The best videos are the first one and the third one.

There is another entry about All Your Base, in French. Lauch all ZIG!