Enjoy your English while you can... 2

[Zathras]

This just came to me in an e-mail. Unfortunately there was no attribution, but it is still too good to pass by:

Enjoy your English while you can..... The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Now isnt zat vunerful!

 

[MakeItSo]

That's a good one, Zathras!
English rather than German? Well, the last sentence zounds like a Churman trying to shbeek Englisch!

Hell, even the planned "reforms" look like the same no-brain mess they are currently doing to the German spelling! [shock]

[blue]An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. - "Mahatma" Mohandas K. Gandhi[/blue]

 

[craigsboyd]

That reminded me of Mark Twain's Simplified Spelling...

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/twain-simpspl.html

...the link above is the only decent one I could find during a quick search that included the Figures with it.

SweetPotato Software Website
My Blog

 

[tsdragon]

While I have to admit that English spelling is a quagmire, I'm appalled (two P's) at the horrendous result of the spelling reforms. I'd have to learn how to read all over again!


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[BobRodes]

Perhaps a good compromise would be to allow furriners to misspell with impunity, so long as they got the idea acrost.

bob

 

[tsdragon]

Unfortunately, anyone who does business internationally is going to have to learn to read and write with the new spellings. It would take me three or four times as long (at least) to read something written with the phonetic spellings, and I doubt I could ever learn to write it correctly.

How would I spell my name?

Trase Dridin?

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[tgreer]

Can I point out the obvious joke, that it's SUPPOSED to sound like a German, speaking English?

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

http://www.brownfedora.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[Thadeus]

I don't think you can Thomas...

 

[Zathras]

Anybody here remember Heinrich Schnibble from the old Saturday Evening Post magazine Post Scripts column?

 

[craigsboyd]

Yeah, I'm with Thadeus on this one tgreer. I don't think you can either, but what the heck, give it a shot.

SweetPotato Software Website
My Blog

 

[tgreer]

It was worth a shot. It seemed that people were taking it too literally, rather than as ze joke it vas meant to be!

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

http://www.brownfedora.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[SkipVought]

In za SS...

ve hav vays to mak yu tok!

tik-tok.

Skip,

_{[red]Be advised:[/red]We know Newton's 3 Laws. But did you hear about the [red]FOURTH???[/red]
Only ONE fig per cookie!}

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

It seemed that people were taking it too literally,

If you "google" for spelling reforms you will see what those people were referring to.

& all the best.

 

[tsdragon]

It's difficult to take that sort of thing as a joke. It has been seriously suggested more than once. Most of the spelling changes suggested in the "joke" have been genuinely proposed.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.