Euro-German

Read Carefully For A Laugh!

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".

Dur ing ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a rel sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem ov a united urop vil finali kum tru.

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

Caution Church

Krampus

Krampus is a mythological creature and as far as I have known, unique to the Germanic people.  Originally he was the wild man of the woods - the boogie man. He shakes the forest and tears up trees, he frightens little children, especially those whom have been rotten during the year.  One bad dude.

As St. Nicholas become a part of culture representing all things good, Krampus become the representation of evil.  So, if St. Nicholas is the representative of God, then Krampus is the devil or at least a want-a-be.

This is a very well dressed Krampus, usually he is more primitive (cheaply) dressed!  I guess this town must have had some Krampus bucks lying around or someone whom really got into the role.

Each village, of course, has their own idea of what Krampus looks like.  However, lately some towns have become more Hollywood-ish - with Krampus sporting huge Ibex style horns and wookie fur.  While others have remained much more traditional and primitive in their representation - almost more humorous than fearful for a child!

One of more annoying aspects has been Krampus becoming more of a Halloween character, with at least one Krampus seen whom looked more like someone from Pirates of the Caribeen, tri-corner hat and all, than the more traditional wild forest scary guy that would just as soon eat you as smack your back side pink!

Every December 6^th, on the anniversary of St. Nicholas’ death in 342, someone dressed as St. Nicholas would come through the local villages.  I always figured it was one of the village fathers and interestingly never seem to be the local priest!  He would ask you your name, look in his book and then give out candy to all of the good children and usually some good advice (like attend church, obey your parents, don't do whatever the latest offense the village knew about was, use your hankie and not your sleeve, etc).

Whereas, Krampus, whom always accompany him, would give the bad children several whacks on the back end.  Guess what I got - candy or whacks...... Yah, I figured it was a conspiracy with the police over how many times I got busted every year for climbing the cherry tree in our back yard (all trees were strictly vorboten!).

But, it was a good object lesson for us - good is rewarded and evil is punished by the scary creature!

I remember Krampus as being tall and very hairy.  Of course, as an adult I realize that the hair was long hair goat skins sewn onto a costume. But, it was still frightening!