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
>
---------------------------
Thanks for putting your finger on the aspect of this funny piece that
troubled me as I read it. The connections with skeptical reactions
to G.B.Shaw's ideas on the reform of English spelling and to Esperanto
were so salient that I missed the specific theme of anti-German prejudice.
Robert