A message from The Queen

[Woodchips2]

A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN…

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus 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 North Dakota, 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 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:
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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').
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2. 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.'
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3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are 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.
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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 dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
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11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. 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).
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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 South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
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13.. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
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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).
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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!

Regards Keith

 

[blackrodd]

=D> =D> =D> =D> We are amused!
I wonder what our U/S Cousins will say.
Rodders

 

[John Brown]

1.)
"ize" was the preferred British suffix in the days before Microsoft Word forced all of us Brits to use the "ise" version.
My 1988 Collins English dictionary supports this.

6.)
Certainly replacing 4 way stops with roundabouts would reduce fuel consumption considerably. There are a few roundabouts in the states these days.

9.)
They actually drink some very fine beer in the US, but you are right in that they spoil it by drinking it ice-cold. Fine for a pilsner, but not for an IPA or stout.

10.)
Surely the worst ever "British" accent was Daphne's brother Simon in Frasier.

15.)
You fail to mention the wort part, which is the teabag-on-a-string.

Apart from that, a nice piece of xenophobia!

 

[Jonzjob]

Dictionary definitions of xenophobia include: "deep-rooted, fear towards foreigners" (Oxford English Dictionary; OED), and "fear of the unfamiliar" (Webster's). The word comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "strange", "foreigner", and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear"

Well, I don't detect fear in that, but the 'strange' rings true :roll: :roll:

Something missed is that the letter 't' is pronounced 'tee' and NOT 'dee' as in straTegic and not stradegic (hammer)

I have a print out of that but it's said to have come from a visit to our trans Atlantic cousins a fair while back. Still a giggle though init :mrgreen:

 

[John Brown]

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... xenophobia

There's more to life than Wikipedia...

 

[ChrisR]

=D> =D> =D>

I must not let the long haired boss read this, as she is half American. Just celebrated our Golden Wedding, but I don’t think that would save me. Am I man or mouse, mouse without doubt. :roll:

Chris.

 

[Jonzjob]

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/xenophobia

There's more to life than Wikipedia...

And there is more than one meaning for a lot of words.

Gay for a start :wink:

 

[John Brown]

=D> =D> =D>

I must not let the long haired boss read this, as she is half American. Just celebrated our Golden Wedding, but I don’t think that would save me. Am I man or mouse, mouse without doubt. :roll:

Chris.

My "long haired boss" is 100% American. She read somewhere that Americans are the guardians of the English language, and that British English has changed since the Mayflower landed, giving rise to the current differences. This is partly true, in my opinion.

 

[JakeS]

She read somewhere that Americans are the guardians of the English language, and that British English has changed since the Mayflower landed, giving rise to the current differences. This is partly true, in my opinion.

Guardians of selected parts of the English language, but prepositions apparently got kicked out in the cold years ago and have to fend for themselves, surviving in only selected pockets of modern AmEng... ("I'm going to write Steve and tell him about this" etc.)

Both languages have changed; it's certainly true that we have some words ('autumn' possibly being one of the more obvious) and some spellings that they didn't have when they left, due to continued absorption from the French - who were frightfully trendy - amongst other things. But it's also true that their precious Noah Webster was a nationalist who deliberately messed around with the language with the partial objective of making it distinct from that of the homeland, and made a conscious decision to sever words from their etymology for the sake of different/simpler spellings.

And fundamentally, they invented the word "burglarized", which means they're wrong. ;-)

 

[John Brown]

She read somewhere that Americans are the guardians of the English language, and that British English has changed since the Mayflower landed, giving rise to the current differences. This is partly true, in my opinion.

Guardians of selected parts of the English language, but prepositions apparently got kicked out in the cold years ago and have to fend for themselves, surviving in only selected pockets of modern AmEng... ("I'm going to write Steve and tell him about this" etc.)

Both languages have changed; it's certainly true that we have some words ('autumn' possibly being one of the more obvious) and some spellings that they didn't have when they left, due to continued absorption from the French - who were frightfully trendy - amongst other things. But it's also true that their precious Noah Webster was a nationalist who deliberately messed around with the language with the partial objective of making it distinct from that of the homeland, and made a conscious decision to sever words from their etymology for the sake of different/simpler spellings.

And fundamentally, they invented the word "burglarized", which means they're wrong. ;-)

So partly true, like I said!

 

[rafezetter]

=D> =D> =D> =D> We are amused!
I wonder what our U/S Cousins will say.
Rodders

when I get feedback from my US inlaws I'll let you know!