—One of the major problems encountered in time travel not that of becoming your own mother or father. There is no problem involved in becoming your own mother or father that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is no problem about changing the course of history- the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar…

If a method of travelling through time is ever discovered, we will have to quickly come up with a way to explain it through words. People have foreseen this, and possible methods have been suggested. This is one such method:

A Possible Grammatical Method

The words past, present, and future are replaced by mypast, mypresent, and myfuture when used in first person. Other personal pronouns can be used, such as yourpast and hisfuture, but I will only go into first person here. Also mynow can be used for wherever you are currently in the time stream (And yournow and the rest for wherever other people are.) Pasten is used in the place of traveling into the past, and futurate likewise for the future. When one travels further through time in the same chronological direction paster and forwarder are used. When there are two instances of the same person at the same point in time the one that traveled through time to get there is known as a dopple. If the other is from the dopple's future it is the afterself of the dopple, and if it is from the dopple’s past it is the foreself.

So, if one is to explain that he traveled backwards through time to meet someone, they would say, "I pastened from mypresent to yourpresent." The yourpresent could also be expressed as mynow or yournow, or in fact anyone elses "now" it happens to be.

If that person then were to go even further back in the past to meet themselves, the might express that as, "I pastened from mypast to paster (or yourtime or mynow) to meet my foreself."

This is all very nice and wonderful, but that is only how you explain how you traveled, not what you did, and even then it can be discarded when someone pastens and then futurates to some point in time beyond where they started. It is recommended that anyone who manages to do that learns a new language before the trouble starts.

Linking and Action Verbs

The following is apparently DNA’s (what we can get from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) method of expressing linking and action verbs:

For any form of activity happening in the future, on- is added at the beginning of action verbs showing that that action is performed whenever you get to the point in time and space when/where it occurs. Linking verbs used before such an action verb have an added at the end of the word (and willan is used if there is no other linking verb). If the action is continuous (-ing), then willing _____ (action verb)-en is used. The phrase going to normally is used if something is certain to happen, and if you are futurating then it is, so as it is somewhat awkward will or some form of it is always used. Will have been is self-evident, replacing DNA’s wioll haven be which possibly will be used in other more complex ways.

Example: In it, guests take (willan on-take) their places and eat (willan on-eat) sumptuous meals while watching(willing watchen) the whole of creation explode around them.

For the past, had- is added at the beginning of action verbs showing that that action was performed whenever you get to the point in time and space when/where it occurs. Linking verbs used before such an action verb have ad added at the end of the word (and wased [wuz·ed] is used if there is no other linking verb). If the action was continuous, then wassing (wuz·ing)(or wering [whir·ing] _____ (action verb)-ed is used.

There is much more to be said about the grammar of time travel, what is above being only the basics, and some of it only from a first-person perspective.

Some Other Quirks of Time Travel

• Compound Interest
• Evolution
• The Rise and Fall of Great Civilizations