That reminds me of this old joke [1]: > The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred langu

That reminds me of this old joke [1]: > 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, the British and American government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement. Consequently, they have adopted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as European English (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 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 second year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f." This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter. > In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will encourage the removal of double leters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful and they woud go. > By the fourth year peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v." During ze fifz yer, ze unesasary "o" kan be droped from vords containing "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinatins of leters. > Und after ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German lik zey vonted in ze first plas. I never knew it was based on a Mark Twain quote. Then again, Mark Twain's philosophy I didn't hear much of either (I'm from Europe, don't think I learned any American philosophy on high school). [1] https://alt.jokes.narkive.com/I7hqyPoJ/a-joke-a-plan-for-the-improvement-of-english-spelling https://alt.jokes.narkive.com/I7hqyPoJ/a-joke-a-plan-for-the...