European language 11:18

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

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 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 people 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 kontaining "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.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze
forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Same, same, but different 17:50

David Pogue from the New York Times blogged about Homophoner, a funny little site. A homophone is a word that is pronounced identically with another word, but is spelled differently and has a different meaning.

David Pogue puts it like this:

Ewe plug inn any text yew wont, and it presence yew withe an alternative version–done awl inn homophones, of coarse.

I like this sight fore to reasons. First, it shows why English is sow difficult two learn. Second, thee button you’re supposed two clique is labeled Homophonerate, witch is just such a grate whirred.

In Medieval Times: Introducing the book 14:27

Rune Gokstad og Øistein Bache in the Middle Ages :)

Adapting new technology isn't easy, as shown in this skit about going from scrolls to books. This skit is in Norwegian, but this version on YouTube is subtitled in English and Danish. The skit is orginally from the Norwegian broadcasting company NRK.

Don't nobody go nowhere 15:41

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class.

"In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

Watch it – dry humour 21:54

There are numerous jokes of this kind, but the punch line is the important bit...

A man was painting the outside of the church one Saturday to get it nice and spiffy for services on Sunday. He had two sides of the church done when he realised that he didn't have quite enough paint to finish. Since he was a long way from any place where he could buy more paint and he was running out of time, he decided to thin the paint down so he'd have enough to finish the job.

After finishing the third side, he realised he had to thin the paint even more to make it stretch. He finally finished and was standing back to admire his work when it started to rain. He watched in dismay as the paint ran off the last two sides he had painted.

The minister came outside to see what was going on and saw the look of disappointment on the man's face. The man confessed what he had done to make the paint last.

The minister, wanting to ease the man's burden, said,
"Then repaint and thin no more!"

Obviously, this particular line does not occur anywhere in the Bible. "Repaint" plays on the word "repent", which is mentioned a number of times, whereas the phrase on which the latter part is a wordplay, "sin no more", is found in John 8:11.

Bill Gates and the CD of Power 08:22

Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows on my PC, told him how happy I was with this operating system and showed him the Windows CD. To my astonishment and distress he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned it on.

I was upset because the CD had become precious to me, but he said "Do not worry, it is unharmed." After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said "Take a close look at it."

To my surprise the CD was quite cold and it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription, in lines finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth.

4F6E65204F5320746 F2072756C65207468656D20616C6 C2C204F6E65204 F5320746F2066696E64207468656D2C0 D0A4F6E65204F5320746F206272 696E67207468656 D20616C6C20616E6420696E2074 6865206461726B6E65 73732062696E64207468656D

"I cannot read the fiery letters," I said. "No," he said, "but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says: 'One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them One OS to bring them all and in the
darkness bind them.'"

Just a little Lord of the Rings parody... :)