I'm fond of watching how recollections, narratives and written stories change over time (in other words: I'm interested in the 'folk process'). That's why I read Metchosin's version of the European's commission Denglish story with interest.

When I posted it first in 1999 (three more versions have been posted between 1999 and now) MMario told me that the story goes back at least to 1972 (at that time most probably without the EU angle, I guess). Reader's Digest was his best guess for where he had read it first.

The other four versions posted here don't have the ending Isabel has singled out for critique. They end like this:

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

The different endings tell a bit about which source and which time the rewrite comes from. Metchosin's variant may well come from the anti-EU British tabloids.

Wolfgang