Speaking of spelling, here’s a news bulletin …….. The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would be known as “EuroEnglish.” In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c” . . . Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favor of the “k.” This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replased with the “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 horible mess of the silent “e’s” in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and the “w” with “v.” During the fifz yar, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After ze fifz yar, ve vil hav a realy sensibl vriten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evryvun vil find it easy tu understand each ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!