NewSpeak

[jscheuer1]

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, the British Government conceded that
English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-
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 people 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 sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in
ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

[thetestingsite]

My head hurts now. John, vanks for shring vis.

[djr33]

Vielen Dank, John, daß Sie das geschrieben haben.


Some changes in the spelling of English make a lot of sense. Once you start dropping out the w/th, etc., that gets really odd.

And the real underlying problem is that "o" "u" and "ou" actually have different pronunciation in some dialects, though not the main ones. So that will remove some information from the spelling system.

But after al, I sink zis iz just a joke?

[jscheuer1]

Originally Posted by djr33

But after al, I sink zis iz just a joke?

Most assuredly, with apologies to scholars in either and/or both languages.

[djr33]

Haha, no, it's pretty much true.

It reminds me of a joke:

A group of American fisherman are off the coast of Germany and they radio for assistance:
"Help us, we're sinking!"

The Germans answer: "Oh, hallo, vat are you sinking about?"

[Schmoopy]

Haha, good one

[jscheuer1]

Yes very funny. I'm still sinking it over. About my remarks though, I didn't mean that I'd offended anyone (yet) participating in this thread, just that I acknowledge that some schooled in the intricacies of either or both languages might justifiably take exception. And for that, I do offer my apologies. It was all meant in good fun.

[molendijk]

Despite all the wisdom of the Commission, the French will continue to say 'zeez eez veri funnee' (although they don't mean it, since they hate foreign languages), whereas the Dutch will go on saying 'dis is vejjji funni'.
Apart from that, why speak the same language everywhere? This would mean that one and the same joke would kill us all.

Arie.
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