A Vision of the FutureHaving chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it was anounsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the

stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' with 'z'. Perhaps zen ze finktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of letters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli have a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the Guvernmnt vud finali have kum tru.

Phoney PhoneticsOne reason why I cannot spell,

Although I learned the rules quite wellIs that some words like coup and through

Sound like threw and flue'and who;When oo is never spelled the same,

The juice becomes a guessing game;And then I ponder over though,Is it spelled so or throw or bow,

I mean the bow that sounds like plowAnd not the bow that sounds like row -The row that is pronounced like roe.I wonder, too, why rough and tough,

Why isn't drought spelled just like route,Or doubt or pout or sauerkraut?

When words all sound so much the sameTo change the spelling seems a shame.

There is no sense - see sounds like cents -In making suche a difference

Between the sight and sound of words;Each spelling rule that undergirds

The way a word should look will failAnd often prove to no avail

Because exceptions will negateThe truth of what the rule may state;

That sound the same as gruff and muff,Are spelled like bough and through, for they

Are both pronounced a different way.And why can't I spell trough and cough

The same as I do scoff and golf?So though I try, I still despair

And moan and mutter "It's not fairThat I'm held up to ridicule

And made to look like such a fool?"

The History of the English Language

In the beginning there was an island off the coast of Europe. It had no name, for the natives had no language, only a collection of grunts and gestures that roughly translated to "Hey!", "Gimme!") and "Pardon me, but would you happen to have any woad?"Then the Romans invaded it and called it Britain, because the natives were "blue, nasty, brutish [British] and short." This was the start of the importance of u (and its mispronunciation) to the language. after building some roads, killing off some of the nasty little blue people and walling up the rest, the Romans left, taking the language instruction manual with them.The British were bored so they invited the barbarians to come over (under Hengist) and "Horsa" 'round a bit. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes brought slightly more refined vocal noises.All the vocal sounds of this primitive language were onomatopoeic, being derived from the sounds of weapons striking a foe. "Sss" and "th" for example are the sounds of a draw cut, "k" is the sound of a solidly landed axe blow, "b" and "d" are the sounds of a head dropping onto rock and sod respectively, and "gl" is the

sound of a body splashing into a bog. Vowels (which were either gargles in the back of the throat or sharp exhalations) were derived from the sounds the foe himself made when struck.The barbarians had so much fun that they decided to stay for post-revel. The British, finding that they had lost future use of the site, moved into the hills to the west and called themselves Welsh.The Irish, having heard about language from Patrick, came over to investigat. When they saw the shiny vowels, they pried them loose and took them home. They then raided Wales and stole both their cattle and their vowels, so the poor Welsh had to make do with sheep and consonants. ("Old Ap Ivor hadde a farm, L Y L Y W! And on that farm he hadde somme gees. With a dd dd here and a dd dd there ...")To prevent future raids, the Welsh started calling themselves "Cymry" and gave even longer names to their villages. They figured if no one could pronounce the name of their people or the names of their towns, then no one would visit them. (The success of the tactic is demonstrated still today. How many travel agents have you heard suggest a visit to scenic Llyddumlmunnyddthllywddu?)Meantime, the Irish brough all the shiny new vowels home to Erin. But of course they didn't know that there was once an instruction manual for them, so they scattered the vowels throughout the language purely as ornaments. Most of the

new vowels were not pronounced at all, and the rest were pronounced differently depending on which kind of consonant they either preceded or followed.Next the Danes came over and saw the pretty vowels bedecking all the Irish words. "Ooooh!" they said. They raided Ireland and brough the vowels back home with them. However, the Vikings couldn't keep track of all the Irish rules so they simply pronounced all the vowels "oouuoo."In the meantime, the French had invaded Britain, which was populated by descendants of the Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes. After a generation or two, the people were speaking German with a French accent and calling it English. Then the Danes invaded again, crying, "Oouuoo! Oouuoo!," burning abbeys and trading with the townspeople.The Britons that an invasion by the Romans didn't kill, intermarried with visiting Irish and became Scots. Against the advice of their travel agents, the decided to have a trip to Wales. (The Scots couln't read the signposts that said, "This way to Llyddyllwwddymmllwylldd," but they could smell the sheep a league away.) The Scots took the sheep home with them and made some of them into haggis. What they made with the others it's impossible to say, but Scots are known to this day for having hairy legs.The former Welsh, being totally bereft, moved down out of the hills and into London. Because they were the only people in the islands who played flutes

instead of bagpipes, they were called Tooters. This made them very popular. In short order, Henry Tooter got elected King and began popularising ornate, unflattering cothing. Soon, everybody was wearing over-adorned dress, playing the flute, speaking German with a French accent, pronouncing all their vowels "oouuoo"" (which was fairly easy given the French accent) and making lots of money in the wool trade. Because they were rich, people smiled more (remember, at this time "Beowulf" and "Canterbury Tales" were the only tabloids and gave generally favourable reviews even to the Danes). And since it is next to impossible to keep your vowels in the back of your throat (even if you do speak German with a French accent) while smiling and saying "oouuoo", the Great Vowel Shift came about and tranformed the English language.The very richest had their vowels shifted out in front of their teeth. They settled in Manchester and later Boston.There were a few poor souls who, cut off from the economic prosperity of the wool trade, continued to swallow their vowels. They wandered the countryside in misery and despair until they came to the docks of London, where their dialect devolved into the incomprehensible language known as Cockney. Later, it was taken overseas and further brutalised by merging it with Dutch and Italian to create Brooklynese. Thats what happened, you can check for yourself

The funny English Lesson

We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes,But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

The one fowl is a goose but two are called geese,Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole set of mice,Yet the plural of house is houses not hice.If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,

Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?Then one may be that and three would be those,

Yet hat in the plural wouldn't be hose,And the plural of cat is cats and not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,But though we say mother, we never say methren.Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.So English, I fancy you will all agree,

Is the funniest language you ever did see.

English Pronunciation

Dearest creature in creation,Studying English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verseSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

It will keep you, Susy, busy,Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer.Pray console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it.Just compare heart, beard and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written.)Made has not the sound of bade,

Say - said, pay - paid, laid, but plaid.Now I durely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,But be careful how you speak,

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.Previous, precious; fuchsia, via;

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir;Cloven, oven; how and low;

Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe,Hear me say, devoid of trickery:

Daughter, laughter and terpsichore;Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles;

Exiles, similes, reviles;Wholly, holly, signal, signing;

Thames, examining, combining.Scholar, vicar and cigar;Solar, mica, war and far;

From desire-desirable; admirable from admire;Lumber, plumber; bier but brier;

Chatham, brougham; renown but known;Knowledge, done but gone and tone:

One, anemone, Balmoral;Kitchen, litchen; laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German; wind and mind;Scene, Melpomene; mankind;

Tortoise, torquoise, chamois - leather;Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinthGives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth and plinth.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet;Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,Nor is mould like would and should.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,Which is said to rhyme with "darky",Viscous, viscount; Load and broad;

Toward, to forward, to reward.And your pronunciation's OK

When you say correctly croquet;Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;

Friend and fiend; alive and live;Liberty, library, heave and heaven;Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed;

People, leopard; towed but vowed.Mark the difference, moreover,Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise;Chalice, but police and lice;Camel, constable, unstable;

Principle, disciple, label;Petal, penal and canal;

Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.Suit, suite, ruin; circuit, conduit

Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",But it is not hard to tell,

Why it's pall-mall, but Pall Mall.Muscle, muscular; gaol; iron;Timber, climber; bullion, lion;

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;Senator, spectator, mayor.Ivy, privy; famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.Pussy, hussy and possess,

Desert, but dessert, address.Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenantsHoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,Neither does devour with clangour.Soul but foul, and gaunt, but aunt;

Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger,

And then: singer, ginger, linger.Real, zeal; mauve, gauze and gauge;

Marriage, foliage, mirage and age.Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth;

Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.Seat, sweat; chaste, caste; Leigh, eight, height;

Put, nut; granite but unite.Reefer does not rhyme with deafer.

Feoffor does, and zephyr, heifer.Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George; ate, late;

Hint, pint; senate, but sedate;Scenic, Arabic, Pacific.

Science, conscience, scientific;Tour, but our, and succour, four;

Gas, alas and Arcansas.Sea, idea, guinea, area.

Psalm; but malaria,Youth, south, southern; cleanse, but clean;

Doctrine, turpentine, marine,Compare alien with Italian,Dandelion with battalion,

Sally with ally, yea, yeEye, I, oy, aye. Whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever,Neither, leisure skein, receiver,

Never guess - it's not safe.We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Heron, granary, canary;Crevice and device and eyrie;Face but preface, but efface;

Phlegm, phlegmatic; ass, glass, bass;Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging,War, earn; and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here and there, but ere.

Sever is right, but so is even;Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;

Monkey, donkey; clerk and jerk;Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork and work.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche -Is a paling, stout and spiky,

Won't it make you lose your wits,Writing "groats" and saying "grits".

It's a dark abyss, or tunnel,Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, ratherSaying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rhymes with "enough"Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup".My advice is, give it u

Mysteries of Anatomy

Where can a man buy a cap for his knee,

Or the key to a lock of his hair?

Can his eyes be called an academy

Because there are pupils there?

Is the crown of your head where jewels are found?Who travels the bridge of

your nose?If you wanted to shingle the

roof of your mouth,Would you use the nails on

your toes?Can you sit in the shade of

the palm of your hand,Or beat on the drum of your

ear?Can the calf in your leg eat

the corn off your toe?Then why not grow corn on

the ear?Can the crook in your elbow be sent to jail?

If so, just what did he do?How can you sharpen your

shoulder blades?I'll be darned if I know - do

you?

Grammar Rules for the Unenlightened(Or: How to Write Good)

Do not use no double negatives.Don't never use no triple negatives.No sentence fragments.Stamp out and eliminate redundancy.Avoid clichés like the plague.All generalisations are bad.Take care that your verb and subject is in agreement.

A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.Avoid those run-on sentences that just go on and on, they never stop, they just keep rambling and you really wish they would hurry up and get to the point, but no, they just keep going and these sentences, they just never stop, they go on forever ... if you get my drift ...You should never use the second person.The passive voice should never be used.When dangling, watch your participles.Never go off at tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the sixth century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what is now known as Poland ...Excessive use of exclamation marks can be disastrous!!!!Remember to end each sentence with a full stopDo not use commas, which aren't necessary.Do not use question marks inappropriately?Don't be terse.Do not obfuscate your writing with extraneous verbiage.Avoid tumbling off the cliff of triteness into the black abyss of overused metaphors.Avoid those despicably horrible, outrageously repellent exaggerations.Avoid any awfully anachronistic aggravating antediluvian alliterations.Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

The English Lesson

We must polish the Polish furniture.He could lead if he would get the lead out.The farm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.The soldier decided to desert in the desert.

This was a good time to present the present.A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.I did not object to the object.

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.The bandage was wound around the wound.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.To help with the planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.After a number of injections my jaw got number.Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?She could not live with a live mouse in the house.

It was just a minute prick and over in a minute.His mistake was putting his left foot forward while putting.

We would probably read more Shakespeare if we understood what we readThere was a bow tied in the ropes on the bow of the ship.

You should spring that on us next spring!

You're Smarter Than You Thought

According to a sutdy at Hrravad Unerstiivy msot pelope can raed and unadetnrsd any mxied up wrod as lnog as the frsit leettr and the lsat lteter are in palce. This is bcesaue we raed wrods as a wolhe and not as leretts in oderr.

So y'oure smraetr tahn you thohgut hhu?