I am shocked, simply shocked, by an email I received last night forwarded to me from the Queen of England. As you know, the Queen and I are on good terms, but I really think she has gone too far this time in bestowing her blessing upon such a venture. The email:
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, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase 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, sivill servants will resieve this news with joy. Also the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typwriters 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. Government 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.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivon vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
This time, Her Majesty's Government has gone too far. As Owen Meany would say, I shall not tolerate this UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE. I urge all of you to join me in a fervent letter-writing campaign to protect the sanctity of our language and stop this War
*The title of this post, "They're Taking Our Language to Isengard!" is an allusion to a particular earworm of a video. If you have forgotten what an earworm is, click here for my scholarly essay on the subject.
6 comments:
Methinks someone is trying to get the goat of a certain Englishman.
Brad, I am so glad that you are keeping your eye on the news of the world, and raising the much needed voice of gorillaly outrage where it is required.
Nice one dude or should I say Herr Brad ze earverm zeeka uv ze Cascadian Reich! Zieg Heil!
Nonny, I'm confident that the Englishman's goat is just as peeved as I am!
Saluatory Landlord, Someone has to keep an eye on the news around here, or everything goes kablooey.
Mr Pudding, It's only a matter of time. I shudder to think of what will become of us.
brad, have you read the book "ella minnow pea"? i think you would enjoy it.
Ms. Smoochypants: Thank you for the book recommendation. I will have to ask my Landlady to order the book for me, as I have been banned for life from both library systems. They told me, "No animals in the library besides seeing-eye dogs," and when I pointed out that I was a PERSON in addition to an animal, they talked briefly about giving me special priviledges. Then, the HAM (Hedgehogs of the American Revolution) protested that there was favoritism being given to primates, and the library systems hastily backpedaled and said, "Okay, NO ANIMALS besides human beings and some seeing-eye dogs."
Hedgehogwash!
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