JULY 22, 2007

For the past three weeks, I was in Italy, where of course Italian is the common language. I do speak "restaurant Italian" but not much more. Although one can get by with just English most places, everyone remarks that it is a terrible language to read or write, even if one speaks it. Every one by now is aware that Pope Benedict XVI has issued a ruling granting greater access to the Latin Mass. What was not so widely publicized was that he was also negotiating to form a common language for the European Union as well as the United States. He had decided on English, rather than Latin, but there needed to be some modifications so that it would be easier for everyone to read and write English.

The following proposal was put forward:

"As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government, the President of the United States, the Prime Ministers of Canada and of Australia, and the heads of other Anglophile countries have conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and have accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Ecclesiastical-English".

"In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

"There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

"In the 3rd 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 ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

"By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

"During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords containing "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza.

"Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

"Zen ve vil rul ze vorld!!"