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 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. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united Europ vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
The reason the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines bicker among themselves is that they don’t speak the same language.
For instance, Take the simple phrase “secure the building”.
The Army will post guards around the place.
The Navy will turn out the lights and lock the doors.
The Marines will kill everybody inside and set up a headquarters.
The Air Force will take out a 5 year lease with an option to buy.
Hear eye sit inn English class; the likelihood is that eye won't pass
An F on my report card wood bee worse than swallowing glass
It's knot that eye haven't studied, often till late at knight
Butt the rules are sew confusing, eye simply can't get them write
Hour teacher says, "Heed my advice, ewe must study and sacrifice"
Butt if mouses are mice and louses are lice, how come blouses aren't blice
The confusion really abounds when adding esses two nouns
Gooses are geese, butt mooses aren't meese; somebody scent in the clowns
Two ultimatums are ultimata, and a couple of datum are data
Sew wouldn't ewe expect it wood bee correct fore a bunch of plums to be plata?
And if more than won octopus are octopi, and the plural of ox is oxen
Shouldn't a couple of busses bee bussi and a pare of foxes bee foxen?
Let's talk about spelling a wile, specifically letters witch are silent
Words like "psychologist" and "wreck" shirley make awl of us violent
And another example quite plane witch is really hard two explain
If it's eye before e except after sea, then what about feign and reign?
The final exam will determine how eye due, weather eye pass ore fail
I halve prepared as much as eye can down two the last detail
I'm ready two give it my vary best inn just a little wile
And then isle take a relaxing wrest on a tropical aisle.
(By Alan Balter)
A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.
'"House" in French, is feminine - "la maison", while "pencil" in French is masculine - "le crayon."'
One puzzled student asked, "What gender is a computer?" The teacher thought it would be a good exercise to have the students decide what they thought the gender should be.
So she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.
The men's group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you constantly find yourself spending more money on accessories for it.
The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine "le computer") because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model!
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