Jody sent me this humorous article, commenting that "our German-speaking
members may think this is funny!"

I hope so, too !  But the really strange humor is because the official
written German language taught in Europe is itself right now undergoing
modernization.  Thus this humor about English has a bit of truth in it !

Anyhow, I hope that our readers enjoy this, and will reflect upon the
different crazy ways that we write the sounds of English.  Our members
abroad, whose native language is French or German or Dutch or Spanish
or ___, all have great courage to write to MMD.  We surely appreciate
you folks!  :)

The USA is still measuring distance with inches, and weighing goods with
pounds.  I guess that the abbreviation "in." for "inch" is okay, but why
do we still use "lb." for "pound?"

Tradition ! ... It may be a long time before English is written sensibly.

Robbie Rhodes


 --- begin forwarded humor (Spell-Checker 'off' !)  ---

From: Don Wallace <wallace@iex.com>
Subject: Sprecken se english ...

The European Union commissioners have announced that 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 EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

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 replaced with "k".  Not only will this klear up konfusion, but
typerwriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replace by "f".  This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted
to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.  Govemments
will enkorage the removal of double letters, 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 of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
leters.  After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli snsibl riten styl.  Zer
vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech ozer.  Ze drem vil finali kum tru.