Many U. S. schools have stopped teaching cursive writing. Do you think they will eventually simplify spelling too? Do you think there might be some advantage to that?
May 4, 2015
Many U. S. schools have stopped teaching cursive writing. Do you think they will eventually simplify spelling too? Do you think there might be some advantage to that?
May 4, 2015
Americans have already simplified spelling of the Queen’s English. Is there anything left to simplify further?
To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen… Elizabeth II:
( Not meant for those lacking a sense of humor, and or those that refuse to read a note in its entirety before making a comment)
In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’). (I love that one)
Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of ‘-ize.’ ‘ (I love that one too)
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.)
8.You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God Save the Queen!
LOLOLOL!!!!! ohmygosh!
i loved this! hilarious.!!!
but i take umbrage with number 10.
andie macdowell’s character was AMERICAN.
wake up you person whom thinks you’re so witty! you blew that one.
she was an american visiting london… so she spoke with an american accent.
you twit. (i threw that in as a british putdown.)
I love it! 😀
I agree almost wholeheartedly with Rummuser – especially spelling!
But I would like to add that we get rid of those people who constantly change everything to suit the American way. Could we insert them in the “gun” section where they believe it is a right to confuse people who crochet (unless you crochet you will not understand the system that has infiltrated patterns); the length of yarn required is another anomaly!
http://www.yarnfwd.com/main/crochet.html – gives the conversion!!!!
And then there are needle sizing http://www.allaboutyou.com/craft/knitting/know-your-international-knitting-conversions-53078
Jean you so right to bring up spelling as it gives us – the majority in the world to be able to air the actual right way on various subjects – thanks Rummuser for the reminder!
i love cursive writing. but i suppose like all things … it’s in for extinction eventually!
if all the electronics should suddenly stop working some future day…
the ability to communicate will be sorely limited.
as to fonetics … LOLOL!
i wood luv it! but it wil never hapen probly. sum uv the inglish langwige rools are so silly.
YES spel it lik it salnds. -Becuz, foto etc.etc.etc
correction==salnz instead of salnds (instead of sounds). English is absurd.
Getting the right preposition is difficult, even for English speaking people. There are 150 English prepositions, including 94 one-word and 56 complex prepositions.
It hurts to read simplifications like that, but my guess is as we old fuddy duddies die off ….
I like most of the rules that Rummuser left except of course #7
and Tammy is correct. The character was American.
To be honest, when I’m reading someone’s rant on Facebook or wherever,
if it’s full of words such as “no” instead of “know” and “there” instead or “they’re”,
those kind of things drive me crazy even though I’m not that great at grammar myself.
It just makes the individual sound so ignorant that I stop reading. I instantly dismiss them as stupid. Horrible thing to admit, but that’s how I feel.
I feel the same about the spelling of some names. Someone wrote down their dog’s name, here at the clinic, as “Pannellopy” for “Penelope”… it just makes my head hurt.
It’s not clever, it’s just stupid.
It’s sad. 🙁 The Pannellopy example reminds me that my ignorance went the other way. For years I internally pronounced Penelope Pen-uh-lope, to rhyme with hope, and Yosemite Yose-mite, to rhyme with right. I read many more words than I heard pronounced. Nowadays we can look up words on the internet and hear them pronounced. A real blessing.
We got a resume’ in our office from someone who used “simplified spelling,’ and our office manager threw it away. I would have too, she and I are still “old school” when it comes to those kinds of things and a few others.
I would do the same thing!
I have problems with spelling how things sounds – some accents are barely understandable to me.
I know what you mean about accents. When I watch Netflix I like closed captioning so I can read what some people are trying to say. 🙂
When I first got a cellphone, to practice I would send a message to my friend, using the best shorthand I could do – the window on my old flip top is quite small. Anyway, a few weeks later he said “please would you use full words”. I didn’t understand why until he said “I’m in a busy work place and the only way I can work out what you have written is to read out loud…and that means everyone gets to hear”. It was more labour (note here spell check wants me to delete the “u”) to write long hand but now I do that on most occasions except for okay/ok as a quick reply.
I try to do that all times, as it’s (btw in proper essays this should read “it is”) good to keep practicing that I can write properly even if my grammar leaves things out – that was always one of my problems with Uni essays leaving out a small essential word! Usually “not” or “now”…
I would not delete spell check as it does help – especially when I have no idea how to type a technical word, as options appear and I can select the one that looks right – I worked out when at Uni, I’m a visual learner; I think that has something to do with my eyesight as when I’m out I can tell that the street sign it the right size for whatever I need, a long way in advance…
I’m a visual thinker too. I always thought I was a kinesthetic learner until someone pointed out you can’t do physics and math without visualizing it.
I’m glad I don’t have to write formally. I prefer contractions — they’re more casual and seem more friendly. 🙂