By Bill Derby
Euro English new European community official language
The European Commission has just announced an agreement that English will be the official language of the European Community (EU) – rather than German (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 plan to phase in new rules that would apply to the language and reclassify it as EuroEnglish. The agreed plan is as follows:
In the first year, the soft “c” would be replaced by “s”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be replased by “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan now have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” is replased by “f”. This will reduse “fotograf” by 20%.
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 horible mes of the silent “e”s in the language is disgrasful, and they should eliminat them.
By the 4th year, peopl wil be reseptiv to lingwistik korektions such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v” (saving mor keyboard spas).
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords containing “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibil riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrirun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.
ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!
Excuses for not coming to work today
• When I got up this morning I took two Ex-Lax in addition to my Prozac. I can’t get off the john, but I feel good about it.
• I set half the clocks in my house ahead an hour and the other half back an hour Saturday and spent 18 hours in some kind of space-time continuum loop, reliving Sunday (right up until the explosion). I was able to exit the loop only by reversing the polarity of the power source exactly e * log(pi) clocks in the house while simultaneously rapping my dog on the snout with a rolled up newspaper. Accordingly, I will be in late, or early.
• My stigmata’s acting up.
• I have a rare case of 48-hour projectile leprosy, but I know we have that deadline to meet…
• I am stuck in the blood pressure machine down at the grocery store.
• Yes, I seem to have contracted some attention-deficit disorder and, hey, how about them Cubs, huh? So, I won’t be able to, yes, could I help you? No, no, I’ll be sticking with Sprint, but thank you for calling.
• Constipation has made me a walking time bomb.
• I just found out that I was switched at birth. Legally, I shouldn’t come to work knowing my employee records may now contain false information.
• The psychiatrist said it was an excellent session. He even gave me this jaw restraint so I won’t bite things when I am startled. – The dog ate my car keys. We’re going to hitchhike to the vet.
• I prefer to remain an enigma.
• I am converting my calendar from Julian to Gregorian.
