Re: European Standard English

Douglas Williams (dwilliam who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Wed, 3 Sep 1997 08:46:02 -0700 (PDT)

At 03:21 AM 9/2/97 +0000, R, Serpell forwarded:

>EUROPEAN STANDARD ENGLISH
>
>The European Commission has announced an agreement whereby English will
>be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the
>other contender. Her Majesty's Government conceded that English
>spelling had room for improvement and has therefore accepted a five year
>phasing in of "Euro-English".
...
>By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptive to steps such as replasing
>"th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
...
>During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords
>kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
>kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl
>riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and everivun vil
>find it ezi to understand ech ozer.
>
>ZE DREM VIL
>FINALI KUM TRU!

Very interesting as a folk critique, through analogy, of the EU. I am
assuming that replacing "th" with "z", and "w" with "v", is a deliberate
attempt to produce a pseudoGerman accent--of the sort that one sees in the
Indiana Jones movies ("you VILL deliver us ZE ark, Dr. Jones")--right? And
thus the reason for German (rather than French, which would be a more
logical "contender," for the official language. In which case, the capital
word punch-line is suggesting that the EU is the fourth reich. Poor EU!
Poor Wilsonian vision!

Doug
>