English Ain’t Easy, So Let’s Simplify It.

Fandango

I just read this amusing post from Marilyn Armstrong in which she pointed out that the English language is hard and it doesn’t always make sense. Her post reminded me of something I read on the internet years ago and I thought I’d share it with you in case you hadn’t seen it before.

In 1998, the German automobile company Daimler-Benz announces a $36 billion merger with the United States-based Chrysler Corporation. Shortly after the merger, directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility.

As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan. In the first year, the letter s will be used instead of the soft c. Also, the hard c will be replased with k. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but komputers would have one less letter.

There will be growing kompany enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome ph will be replased by f. This will make words like “fotograf” 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, DaimlerKrysler akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible.

DaimlerKrysler will enkourage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent e in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing th with z and w by v.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary u kan be droped from vords kontaining ou, and similar shanges 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 employes vil find it ezi to kommunikat viz eash ozer.

Ov kors al supliers vil be expekted to yus zis for al busines komunikashun via DaimlerKrysler.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German, lik zey vunted in ze first plas.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

17 thoughts on “English Ain’t Easy, So Let’s Simplify It.”

  1. Ron. May 26, 2023 / 7:12 pm

    OMFG, F.!
    I’d hafta insist on ADDING some letters, sometime. Like now: I’m feelin there ain’t enough O’s to stick into “Goooooood!” to express my fondness for this piece. Peace!

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