01/13/99

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, Her Majesty's Government conceded that
English spelling DID have 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 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 percent 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 double
letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent 'e' in the languaj is
disgrasful, and they would go.

By the forth yer, peopl wil be receptiv to steps such as replasing
the 'th' by 'z' and the 'w' by 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, 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 evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.