jocko's been way ahead of the curve

[MW surveyor]

I received the following from a buddy in the form of an email tonight:

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. :D

[Longitude Zero]

The USA and England are the only 2 countires seperated by a common language.

[Diocoles]

:D

Sounds about right for europe though.

[JFootin]

In order to justify their mispronunciation, the British now spell Aluminum as Aluminium. And they have a car named after one of the most beautiful of animals, the Jaguar. But they insult that beautiful animal by pronouncing it Jag-you-er!

True story: when my Mom, born in 1908, was a young girl, she attended a large family gathering (wedding maybe, she couldn't remember). She met many distant cousins that she had never seen before or since. An argument ensued among some of the children because there was a girl there named Yvonne, but she insisted that her name was pronounced Y-vonn'-e! She finally called on her parents to rescue her, and they also insisted on the incorrect pronunciation! Imagine being so ignorant that you name your child using a name that you don't know how to pronounce correctly!

Edit: the 'Y' was pronounced as it is at the start of this sentence—a hard 'Y'! So, the name had 3 syllables!

[jocko]

in germany, they are not fond of the letter C either. Doctor over there in some towns is still doktor, or castle is still kastle. Cologne if Koln

[TheTman]

LOL that reminds me of the lady that name her daughter Le-a, you'd pronounce that probably like Lee or Lea, or whatever.
The girl called the school mad because the teacher kept calling her the wrong name. She said the girls name was Ledasha "cause the dash don't be silent" so if you ever meet a Le-a, remember to call her Ledasha, cuase the dash don't be silent!

[Bawanna]

Your killin me here. The dash don't be silent!

These people vote.

[MikeyKahr]

]These people vote.

...and procreate. Way too often!!

[mightymouse]

...And they will speak grammatically better English than the average American. At least in my part of the country, seems like 3rd grade grammar is good enough for most folks. "I seen em, where's it at, needs fixed, her and I shook hands..." Many US citizens want English as our official language, but not many interested in preserving the correct usage.
What happened?
Oh well, what ever is used by the majority eventually becomes correct.
For a long time all international pilots and air traffic controllers must speak English.

[Jeremiah/Az]

My part of the country has a very heavy Mexican population. Many do not speak English & many who do have a very heavy Spanish accent. Some of the restaurants I frequent only understand Spanish. English speaking people just point to the menu. I do speak Spanish because I have been raised with them from school on until now. Many of the cowboys on the ranch only spoke Spanish. I still think AMERICAN should be our language!