plain words

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	Bananafish have been moderately tolerant of my fuddy-duddy 
	obsession with standard spelling & typography.  Today's (London) 
	Times reports the mounting impatience among Oxford academics 
	at the ever falling standards shown by modern students.  

	Philip Howard, the paper's incredibly handsome, urbane 
	& erudite Literary Editor proposes the following remedy.

	`...I have a modest proposal for the New Spelling.  It will 
	be introduced progressively in a five year plan.  

	In the first year "s"  will replace the soft "c".  Sertainly the 
	Sivil Servants and selebrities will reseive this news with selestial 
	selebrations.  Also, "k" will replase the hard "c".  Not only will 
	this klear up konfusion & kause us to kalkulate spelling quikker.  
	But typewriters will need one fewer letter.

	By the sekond year there will be growing publik enthusiasm for 
	New Spelling, when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f".  
	This will make such words as fotograf a fifth shorter.  In the third 
	year, publik akseptanse of New Spelling kan be expekted to reach 
	the stage where more komplikated changes kan be kontemplated.  	
	The Government will enkourage the kutting of double letters which 
	have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.  Also al wil agre 
	that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the langaug disgrasful, & 
	they would go.

	By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to intrikat steps such as 
	replasing "th" with "z" & "w" with "v".  During zis fifz year, ze 
	unesesary "o" kan be dropd form vords kontaining "ou" & similar 
	changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.  
	After zis fifz year, ve vil hav to translat Shakspear & ze rest of 
	English litratur. Vords vil los ze romans & clus to zir meanings 
	in zir spelings.  But ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl for ze 
	Nu Vorld of ze UroIngliz. Zer vil be no mor  trubls or difikultis 
	viz Ingliz, vich vil lok kwit lik Zerman.  Evrivun vil find it ezi 
	tu understand ech ozer.  Ze Oxford akademiks vil ses to komplain 
	about ze mispelings in egsam paprs.  Ze publijrs vil be hapi becos 
	zey vil mak odls of muni reprintin ze entir stok of Inglij Litratur. 
	 Ze drem of lojikl speling vil finali kum tru.  Zen ve kan turn ur 
	atenjun to ze reform & ze renual of Inglij gramar...'

	Scottie B.

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