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gridloreThe 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 under German pressure 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 second 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 kanbe 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 containing “ou” 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 urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like ze Krouts vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.
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 second 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 kanbe 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 containing “ou” 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 urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like ze Krouts vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.
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Date: 23 Oct 2005 01:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Oct 2005 08:20 (UTC)I believe Twain did have some ideas along this line, but I've not been able to find a hard copy pre-dating Edwards' article.
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Date: 23 Oct 2005 21:07 (UTC)Has a short essay on the Twain article, which includes the date written. 1899.
Googling for "Twain Spelling Reform" brings up many hits with the essay. Most attribute it to Twain, some dont give any attribution. I didn't find any that gave attribution to anyone else.
However, I did find that while it is a parody of the spelling simplification movement, he did support it. So it is possible there were other parodies floating around. Twain was famous/popular enough that his essay was the one that stuck in the public consciousness.
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Date: 24 Oct 2005 11:16 (UTC)There is a possibility that the "Meihem in ce Klasrum" piece was the original, but if it wasn't, the original author was MJ Shields, writing in a letter to the Economist (Google on Shields and Meihem (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=shields+meihem&btnG=Search&meta=) to get the full skinny (http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:Eq4BOHUzjikJ:www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.html+shields+meihem&hl=en)).
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Date: 23 Oct 2005 03:55 (UTC)