Humour that will start a war amongst friends

[MarkB]

"WHY IS IT THAT WE HAVE TO SPEAK ENGLISH?"


A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included
admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies.
At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a group of half
dozen or so officers that included personnel from most of the countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks, but a
French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many
languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked: "Why is it that
we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than
speaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the
Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't
have to speak German."

MarkB

[perrins57]

A French politician was bemoaning the fact that the British wont give up their EU rebate. "You Briteesh are so onreasonabule" he said to a UK TV reporter. When asked why the French were being so unreasonable about not giving up their farming subsidies he replied, with a Gallic shrug "That is not being unreasonable, that is just being French"

[OutOfBreath]

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the
Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't
have to speak German."

MarkB

[jGilder]

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

So now everyone has to speak English. :adminok:

[jbarter]

So now everyone has to speak English

For now...

[Matt_Paris]

Experiment:

Take a normal english dictionnary. List all the words coming directly or undirectly from french. I think those words will represent more than 60%.

So technically, while speaking english, we speak french.

[Jens_Hoppe]

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

So what did the Russians do? Watch from the sideline? :roll:

[perrins57]

Experiment:

Take a normal english dictionnary. List all the words coming directly or undirectly from french. I think those words will represent more than 60%.

So technically, while speaking english, we speak french.

He’s right you know, the percentage is a bit out - we have a lot of Norse words from the Danelaw period for instance - but over all he’s right! Although it gets worse, because the original structure of the English language is Germanic (where the Angles and the Saxons came from!). So to be really accurate we are all speaking German with a heavy reliance on French vocabulary.

[Matt_Paris]

Experiment:

Take a normal english dictionnary. List all the words coming directly or undirectly from french. I think those words will represent more than 60%.

So technically, while speaking english, we speak french.

He’s right you know, the percentage is a bit out - we have a lot of Norse words from the Danelaw period for instance - but over all he’s right! Although it gets worse, because the original structure of the English language is Germanic (where the Angles and the Saxons came from!). So to be really accurate we are all speaking German with a heavy reliance on French vocabulary.

Hey hey... On another hand, french language uses more and more english words, and more and more english grammatical structures...

I love language history.

[perrins57]

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

So what did the Russians do? Watch from the sideline? :roll:

Nobody even invited the Russians!

[rh]

So now everyone has to speak English

For now...

...until we're required to start speaking Chinese...

[MarkB]

Or Hindi!

MarkB

[NicoMoreno]

How else will we understand customer support?

[djm]

How else will we understand customer support?

[s1m0n]

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied: Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

Funny. Despite the fact that we were there from the start while the US had to get dragged in a couple of years late, I never hear this sentiment expressed by anyone but an american.