John Cleese Reclaims English from USA
I have been a life-long admirer of the majestic “English” language, and one of its’ quirkier products; the humour of John Cleese. Here is a letter with the annotation John Cleese [Basil of Fawlty Towers] at the end, written to the citizens of the USA reclaiming the English language. Enjoy:
QUOTE
To the citizens of the United States of America, in light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II resumes monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.8% of you who have, until now, been unaware theres a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America. Congress and the Senate are disbanded. A questionnaire circulated next year will determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid your transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. Look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Check aluminium in the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you pronounce it. The letter “U” will be reinstated in words such as favour and neighbour. Likewise you will learn to spell doughnut without skipping half the letters. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary.
Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed.” There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you should not have chat shows.
2. There is no such thing as “U.S. English.” We’ll let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’.
3. You should learn to distinguish English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). Scottish dramas such as ‘Taggart’ will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.You must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon.” If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1.
5. You should stop playing American “football.” There’s only one kind of football. What you call American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.1% of you aware there is a world outside your borders may have noticed no one else plays “American” football. You should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls.
Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).
You should stop playing baseball. It’s not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called “rounders,” which is baseball without fancy team stripe, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
6. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns, or anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because you are not sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you need a permit to carry a vegetable peeler.
7. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday. It will be called “Indecisive Day.”
8. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left. At the same time, you will go metric without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
9. Learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren’t French, they’re Belgian though 97.8% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.
10. The cold tasteless stuff you call beer is actually lager. Only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer.” Substances once known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine,” except for the product of the American Budweiser company which will be called “Weak Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine.” This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
11. The UK will harmonise petrol prices (or “Gasoline,” as you will be permitted to keep calling it) for those of the former USA, adopting UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon, get used to it).
12. Learn to resolve personal issues without guns, lawyers or therapists. That you need many lawyers and therapists shows you’re not adult enough to be independent. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.
13. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.
14. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
John Cleese
[Basil Fawlty, FawltyTowers, Torquay, Devon, England]
NOTE from Rox: This topic raised so much discussion all over the www, and what stuck out from all the comments and dicussions on other websites, [the excellent comments under this post excluded] is that people really need to lighten up..
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I just posted this elsewhere, it is a Canadian response to your explosive global altercation. I think us Canuck peace makers have disarmed the situation.
My response to Mr. Cleese:
Well now isn’t this a fine display of British snobbery.
Quite frankly I find your reasoning Fawlty.
Am I the only one who noticed that you folks no longer say that you are from Great Britain? Apparently you have fully accepted the English ain’t so great and grand anymore.
Now, they say they are from the U.K. meaning United Kingdom.
I think a class action lawsuit is in order for making claims of unity in your kingdom, can you spell I.R.A.?
And to get back on topic isn’t it a bit strange Mr. Cleese that you come from a supposedly united country and y’all are lecturing on pronunciation?
You have about 58,093 dialects and accents? Agreement on pronunciation? Hah!
I think your umbreller got out of whack in the warshing machine. You accuse those lovely but sometimes insufferable Yanks (I’m Canadian where we are much purer in speech of course)of removing letters like “u†but what about adding letters like an r to washing or umbrella? What’s with that? As far as I’m concerned that is seless.
Are you even aware of that deal over there (I think the movie Snatch by Mr. Madonna has an example or two?) where they say “upstairs” which means “part your hair” or “Barney Rubble” which means “you’re in trouble” or some such rot.
Speaking of which what is up with “rotâ€, I’m a bachelor and I know about rot in relationship to my refrigerator, but what does it have to do with other things, old chap?
And sports criticism. Well as far as I can see that is the marijuana calling the kettle black, old bean.
Is everyone old over there? Besides your dottering old monarch? As a Canadian I am qualified to comment we still have the old dear doing nothing for us too.
Is there anything in sports (besides badminton and darts which were probably both invented in the Old Country) more ridiculous than cricket? And try fox hunting over in Californiashire with PETA breathing down your necks.
Sir your supercilious, santimonious, sermonizing ain’t quite criket over here in Camerica. What the hell does cricket have to do with things not being quite cricket?
I wish you Brit gits would get it right and call it soccer, we have a whole social class of soccer moms, sir, are we supposed to mess with their identity?
It’s true that “football†is a European originated sport. For some reason it has not caught on in sensible Camerica. Oh yeah, we love sports where a bunch of crybabies run up and down a field most of them not even touching the ball, fall down when a gust of wind comes up, act like they just received shrapnel, and then the game ends up with a 0 - 0 tied score. Breathtaking!
Try as I might I have no idea why you would present that dysfunctional royal family as something to covet a relationship with. I figure your going for a knighthood like Sir Elton or Sir McCartney who have certainly made the world a safer place to live - between jousting and rescuing damsels in distress.
And what is with the “Brits are so great” and to prove it you cite German cars and French fries. Anyone who has ever dined on English cuisine (an oxymoron?) understands and if you owned an old Vauxhall or Jaguar oh yeah, Johnny boy, dependability is the first thing that comes to mind.
Thankfully American auto manufacturers are coming to the Un-United Kingdom and straightening out your mess.
And what kind of commie pinko fag would speak out against guns? Go peel a potato buddy.
What kind of an idiot would not want to protect themself against the lovely American passtimes of drive by shootings, car jackings and home invasions, sheesh.
Oh yeah and contract negotiations between rappers.
I am with you on that gnat-piss deal. Us Canadians can teach the world about beer you hoser.
But that Guiness crap is like drinking motor oil. And then just because you guys aren’t in the 21st century yet you advocate warm and flat beer? They have invented something that is used in Camerica extensively - refrigeration.
Speaking of oil I love your comments about gas prices as if this is something to aspire to. I’m sure the good people of Utahshire are impressed.
As to JFK’s assassin? It has been well covered up but it was Bond - James Bond, the man with a licence to kill. Lovely designation you English people have. Political intrigue indeed.
Well I will close out my defence of my neighboring country who still think that 3 miles on the U.S. side of their northern border is moderate weather but another 3 miles north is 10 months of winter and 2 months of bad skiing.
Basil you prating purveyor of prose, a podium pounding, pontificator, them Yanks kicked your prissy English asses once before over taxes I believe and independence. Basil, you poof, your war has ended before it started, so back off!
In case you didn’t do the math you are greatly outnumbered the United States of America ain’t the Falkland islands, so cheerio which incidentally is a breakfast cereal.
It’s no longer the red coats marching honorably against the blue coats. It is Uzi’s being fired from crack shacks. Go home before you get hurt where the cops carry clubs instead of armor piercing bullets like regular people.
And what is with Scotland Yard, is it outdoors?
John
John - this is simply the “icing on the cake”. Had read your reply earlier today on another Blog, and was going to Post a reference to it later today, but you have rewarded the readers of this Blog with the full transcript.
KUDOS on your eloquence, whit and obvious “charm”! Thank you, this will be “framed” and a treasured Post.
….best
Roseanne
AND - thankfully, Basil has directed the letter “u” (example: humour) be reinstated in the English language - makes my life a darn side easier as I write for a worldwide audience!
You know when you write something like this you never know if people will “get it”. Glad you did.
By all means spread the word. I actually first ran across Mr. Cleese’s war manifesto on your site which led me to another where I posted but I added a few things and fixed a couple of things so yours is a “special edition”, one of a kind.
In days to come you can tell your children and grandchildren that a Canadian named John brought peace at a time when your great country and that tired old place called England were on the brink of armed conflict.
Roseanne, you are actually the one who deserves credit for this and if I may be so bold a Congressional Medal of Honor, not Honour, is well deserved.
continued….
Gravatar Oh boy, red face alert.
I have just discovered this wonderful blog. You know how Mr. Cleese accuses Americans of thinking everything is about them? Well, apparently some Canadians assume everyone is American.
I have just insulted our host. I suggested that an Australian should receive an American award of recognition. At least I discovered this faux pas on my own.
No wonder she found the shots taken at America so funny! Bloody Aussie troublemaker.
But the real reason I am so embarrassed is I could have taken some great pot shots at the fact that Australia was founded and infested with English criminals.
That probably explains Mr. Cleese wanting us to differentiate between the two accents, bloody snob.
All I can say is: Pip Pip Cheerio.
What the hell does that mean anyhow? As far as I can tell it is two members of Gladys Knight’s band eating breakfast.
Please accept my apologies Roseanne, and go throw another shrimp on the Barbie mate.
John
By Tim Frazier
To the citizens of Great Britain,
I obviously got your letter long after it was written. The last incompetent leader elected in the United States of America was Bill Clinton, and we did it as a joke. It was obviously a mistake and got quite out of hand. We apologize and will do our best to not let it happen again.
In a successful attempt to rectify that mistake, we have twice now elected George W. Bush, who has done a fine job of clearing up the misunderstandings which resulted from the Benny Hill type antics of his predecessor. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is welcome to exercise the same amount of political power over these United States as she does anywhere else. We really don’t think it will hurt anything and doubt that any of our citizens will actually notice.
The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP is welcome to come visit and give advice. We like him just fine, even if he is a labor—sorry, labour—party leader. People can be as liberal as they want as long as they jump in with us and start kicking butts when some back-woods mountain pirate in the middle east crosses the line. Here are our responses to the list of rules you sent us:
We looked up “revocation†in the Oxford English Dictionary. We don’t care. We checked “aluminium†in the pronunciation guide. We are amazed at the fact that we produce and use this material more than anyone else in the world yet you want to tell us how to pronounce it. We are working on a language efficiency guide for you, to demonstrate how additional unnecessary letters like “u†in many words wastes valuable computer hard drive space. I agree we took these efficiencies a little too far in the decade or two prior to Y2K but we have learned our lesson and will restrict our tendency to abbreviate to common words, not date and time stamps. We recommend you obtain a copy of the “Blue Collar TV Redneck Dictionaryâ€. We agree that using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like†and “you know†is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. That (and many other reasons) is why we wholeheartedly support your immediate acquisition of the state of California. We won’t lift a finger to stop you and only request that in return you put a very high, impenetrable fence between them and us.
You’re right, there is no such thing as “U.S. English.†Let us know when you plan to assimilate California and we will make sure we have moved the contents of Redmond to Silicon Valley prior to the acquisition. The software company you mentioned (I’m afraid to put their name in writing due to the proliferation of lawyers you pointed out) headquartered in Redmond could do with a little British intervention.
We don’t need to learn to distinguish between English and Australian accents. Why would we bother when we don’t listen to anything either of you say anyway?
Regarding your request for us to learn the words to “God Save the Queenâ€, we have never understood why the Queen needs to be saved. Hasn’t she been saved yet? It seems some British gentleman should get off his keister (look up “keister†in the “Redneck Dictionary) and save her, because you’ve been asking God to do it for a long time and it doesn’t appear He feels it’s an urgent matter (neither do we, we tend to be on His side—look up “Abraham Lincolnâ€).
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. You mentioned “American†football. We also believe it should just be plain ol’ “footballâ€. The Kevlar body armor—sorry, armour since that’s what you prefer—see how inefficient that is???—is a result of the proliferation of insurance companies and lawyers. We’re working on it. We have rugby, but it is played at secret locations and times to avoid insurance auditors and lawyers. We have successfully disguised it as Hockey…don’t get me started on why we didn’t have a hockey/American Rugby season last year, it’s a whole different topic…
Regarding your demand for us to stop playing baseball, the baseball team in my area shows up on game day, but apparently has stopped playing baseball, so you win that one.
Sure thing on the guns, just come on over and start taking them from us. You might want to bring some of that American Football Kevlar body armor and a whole lot of Australian army buddies with you. And plan on it taking a looooong time (look up “infinityâ€).
Regarding your demand we carry nothing more dangerous than a vegetable peeler in public: like I said, we’ll comply with this a soon as you’ve successfully achieved your goal of taking away our guns (look up “cold, dead fingersâ€, “NRAâ€, and “Charlton Hestonâ€).
We agreed with the American Car problem a long time ago. Thats why the American car companies now own most of the European car companies (look up “Jaguar is now owned by Fordâ€. We do need help with our traffic system. We can’t even get people to walk on the right side in the mall here. I think we’ll outsource our traffic problems to Sweden. They have Volvos (look up “Ford owns Volvoâ€) so they are used to designing traffic flows for heavy, powerful vehicles, not dinky underpowered British horseless carriages.
Belgium is a country??? I thought it was a chocolate manufacturer.
I can’t speak to the opinions of other Americans, but you have valid points regarding beer. Guinness, however, licks anything else you have hollow. Imagine what the Irish could do if you guys got out of their business!
US gas prices synchronized with UK: This is apparently already in progress. My Dodge Magnum burns $300.00 worth a month (Look up “Daimler-Chrysler†and “American Muscle Carâ€)
In regards to learning to resolve problems without guns, lawyers, etc. you should become familiar with our continuum of force policies. We’re working on getting rid of the lawyers and therapists and escalating straight to the guns every time in order to make the dispute processes less time consuming.
Who killed JFK? It’s driving you crazy??? So THAT’S what happened to you guys!
Regarding your desire to collect taxes here back-dated to 1776, you are welcome to do that as soon as you complete your project to confiscate all our guns. You might want to get those vegetable peelers banned as well. We’re funny about higher taxes and have been trained to dispatch tax collectors with common household items such as bananas and whiffle balls. You’d be amazed at how much damage we could do with a peeler.
Sincerely,
Tim Frazier
President of Fraziertopia
Grapevine, Texas
These United States (Except California)
[...] has gifted the readers of this Blog with his “right of reply” to my previous Post : John Cleese Reclaims English Language from the USA . Jis reply was on the comments field of that post, and it was too good to stay there… so [...]
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