In our shrinking world of globalization and problems associated with different languages, the European Union commissioners have announced that an 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, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Euro-English.
In the first year, “s” will be used instead of the soft “c.” Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard “c” will be replased with “k.” Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters 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. Governments will enkorage the removal of doubleletters, 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 ofkors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst place.
—With thanks to Anne Louise Grimm.
