Guerilla non-eEnglish spelling and grammar campaign

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

We speakers of languages of the world have decided to answer the eEnglish-speaking hegemony on these wikis. In response to other guerilla campaigns:

Mission statement[edit]

Article 1[edit]

We reserve the right to spell eEnglish as we see fit. ie. English is as valid as english, if you are a Celt, Ænglisc or Saesneg will suffice too, but eEnglish is the preferred spelling.

Article 2[edit]

We reserve the right to mix British and American. Sentences such as : "He realized the town-centre was as mouldy as eggplants or zuchini left to rot for the honour of dialog." shall be considered correct on Meta-Wiki.

Article 3[edit]

We reserve right to violate english grammar. No, english grammar itself is not entirely logical. We shall not hesitate to mix conjugations, uses wrong tenses, completely disregard rules for cases (a, an, the), take decision and have no sense.

Article 4[edit]

Anyone unhappy about our command of the eEnglish language shall be sentenced to write at least one page in any language other than eEnglish, without a single mistake. And for you Canadians, no, French does not count.

Article 5[edit]

Anyone unhappy about our command of the eEnglish language is free to fix the mistakes; however, he shall not be authorized to place [sic] in any of our comments.

Article 6[edit]

  • 6.1. We shall not tolerate however any wrong use of it's and its, your and you're, then and than, who's and whose, or there, their and they're (especially by self-proclaimed native speakers) in memory of the terrible hardships we went through while learning eEnglish in school (bad grades, teachers beatings etc.)
  • 6.2. We shall not tolerate the wrong use of past tenses, in memory of the sleepless nights we spent learning that damn litany of irregular verbs for school . to be, was, been - to become, became, become - to begin, began, begun - to blow, blew, blown - etc.

Article 7[edit]

We shall make "Why can't the English?" (from the Broadway Musical My Fair Lady) our guerilla song.

One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian ; the Greeks are taught their Greek
In France every Frenchman knows his language from "A" to "Zed"
The French don't care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it leftwards, which is absolutely frightening.