English as the Preferred Language?
The European Union commissioners have announced that
agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred
language for European communications, rather than German,
which was the other possibility. As part of the
negotiations, the British government conceded that English
spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a
five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish
(Euro for short).
- In the first year, "s" will be used instead
of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will
resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c"
will be replaced with "k". Not only will this
klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less
letter.
- There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond
year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced
by "f". This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
- In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new
spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more
komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage
the removal of double letters, which have always ben a
deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the
horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is
disgrasful, and they would go.
- By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such
as replasing "th" by "z" and
"w" by "v".
- During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be
dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar
changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
leters.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like
zey vunted in ze forst place....