EU Progress: Official Language Change to "Euro-English

[Borek]

Yeah, I found a bunch of places both on the net and a couple in Google Books that attribute one of the original versions to someone named "MJ Shields" who supposedly wrote it as a letter to Economist magazine. But I couldn't find a citation of what issue of the Economist it would have come from nor any mention of it on the Economist website itself so I am suspicious of whether even that is true. There seems to be consensus that it had nothing to do with Twain.

I will post the link again:

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.php

A little bit more details. Not that you have to trust these

 

[Art]

I have heard Germans switching to Polish to swear

That's only their best international footballers

 

[Antti]

If you want any force in your swearing then try finnish :)

I think the whole world needs to have the same language

 

[turbo]

A former boss (construction superintendent whom I later replaced) would slip into Latvian when he was particularly agitated. I didn't understand what he was saying, but his son appeared to be sufficiently impressed.

This was one tough dude. His mother and aunt came and took him out of school (a small town outside Riga) one day. The Russians had moved in, stolen all the food from the family farm, including all livestock and draft animals. The men resisted, and all his older male relatives were slaughtered. The two women struck off cross-country with this young boy, seeking refuge. Kredo told me stories of trying to glean food from picked over crop-land, to maybe find a potato or part of a turnip, etc. He also told me of days when his mother or aunt gave him part of a potato or carrot to eat, telling him "I'm not hungry". They were angels, and he showed them extreme deference in their later years.

When the Nazis came through Latvia, Latvian men volunteered for service (often in poorly-equipped suicide squads) not because they liked the Germans, but because they wanted revenge on the Russians.