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EuroEnglish | In answer to Bruce's challenge

Berni Armstrong — Sat, 15 Feb 2003 00:09:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Berni Armstrong
Post title: In answer to Bruce's challenge

How about rute, rot, rout, rort?

The first and last are consistent with other standard English spellings and the third is a phonetic attempt based on Spanish

Remember Shaw\'s famous GHOTI? (That\'s FISH - \"gh\" as in rough, \"o\" as in women and \"ti\" as in action

Cheers,

Berni

In favour of reform, as long as it doesn\'t reproduce the ITA fiasco of the early seventies!

EuroEnglish | More on English spelling

Jack Doughty — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 23:00:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Jack Doughty
Post title: More on English spelling

Fore more on the peculiarities of English spelling, see:

[url removed] #36773

EuroEnglish | To be serious for a moment...

John Bowden — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 16:04:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: John Bowden
Post title: To be serious for a moment...

I must have been sent about 20 variations on this text over the past couple of years, and thez seem to fall into two categories: one lists sets of gradual \"spelling reforms\", and end up something like \"spelin wil den be ezier\".

The other, the version posted here, always starts with the statement that \"agreement

has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for

European communications, *rather than German*\", and ends up \"ze drem vil haf kum tru\" - i.e the racist stereotype of how Germans are supposed to speak English (and many racists in teh UK at least accuse Germans of wanting to \"take over\" Europe). Of course I\'m not for a moment imputing racist intentions in the present case, but I always refuse to pass on this version to anyone else as I don\'t want to reinforce anti-German sterotypes.

Sorry to be such a kill-joy, but having taught German in teh UK at secondary and tertiary level for the past 30 years, I\'m very sensitive to such things!

EuroEnglish | I was loughing loudly!

Bruce Popp — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 12:44:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Bruce Popp
Post title: I was loughing loudly!

I understood it was a joke and found it very funny!

I would seriously love to see some spelling reform, which is why I posted a more serious response.

Best wishes,

Bruce

EuroEnglish | To BienFait

Katarzyna Chmiel — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 07:46:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Katarzyna Chmiel
Post title: To BienFait

On 2003-02-14 02:45 BienFait wrote:

\"I like some of your suggestions (but not replacing th with z or w with v).\"

I am sorry for not making this clear, but the text is a joke and the ideas are NOT MINE. I just found it worth of sharing with other people interested in language-related issues as a smart and amusing stuff.

Anyway, I think some jokes (like this one)may be inspiring and start serious and valuable discussions.

I hope you will excuse me.

Yours,

Kasia

EuroEnglish | You made me lough

Adriana Esposito — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 07:14:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Adriana Esposito
Post title: You made me lough

out LOUD! But really LOUD! I will forward this text to everybody I know who can speak Engish!

Have a NISE day!

adriana

EuroEnglish | root, rot, rote, wrought

Bruce Popp — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 02:42:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Bruce Popp
Post title: root, rot, rote, wrought

English has been a worthy target of orthographic reform since before Shakespeare (maybe even since Chaucer).

At one point the spelling was even a lot more flexible and creative! I remember trying to read a facsimile copy of the Lewis and Clark\'s journal. Very creative spelling, but I was not allowed to use it to justify my own creative spelling.

Later in that century there were some attempts at spelling reform that left us things like forty (but not one, two,three, for), and, in my neck of the woods, distinct pronounciations for ant and aunt. (Now that does make sense, and who needs r\'s between long vowels and vocalized consonants anyway?)

But English spelling has become less flexible and now computer spell checkers are rigid enforcers. Very unfortunate.

I like some of your suggestions (but not replacing th with z or w with v). But how would you pronounce my subject line if it were written rot, rot, rot, rot?

Best wishes,

Bruce

[ This Message was edited by:on2003-02-14 02:45]

EuroEnglish | Please...

NimrodTran — Fri, 14 Feb 2003 02:40:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: NimrodTran
Post title: Please...

DON\'T GIVE THEM IDEAS!

EuroEnglish

Katarzyna Chmiel — Thu, 13 Feb 2003 21:20:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: EuroEnglish
Poster: Katarzyna Chmiel

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 negotiations, her Majesty 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 reseive this news with joy. Also,

the hard \"c\" will be replased 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 replased by \"f\". This will make

words like \"fotograf\" 20 per sent 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 enkourage the removal of double

letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent \"e\"s in the

languag is disgraful, and they would go.

By the forth 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 year, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer

vil be no mor trobls or difikultis and evrivum vil find it ezi tu

understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Jors sinsreli,

Kasia Chmiel