A rebuttal to John Cleese

I recently found this online, a letter to the American people by famed British comedien John Cleese.  I know that he's completely saying this as a playful jab, which is why I'm still a raving fan of his.  For the record, if you're offended by anyone poking fun at the British, the Americans, Lee Greenwood or Queen Elizabeth II or anything else, then don't read this.  But if you read Cleese's letter, you may read on.

Because I have space on the internet too (thank you Blogger), and I thought I'd issue a bit of a rebuttal...

Hey Cleesey-Poo:

We were never quite as formal as you were, so I'll spare you the whole "Dear Citizens of..." business.  Since you're apparently speaking for all of Britain (England? UK? Seriously, decide on a name at some point), I'll respond to you by yourself.  Of course I speak for everyone.  Sike.  I can say whatever I want, and no one can really stop me except in certain circumstances, but no one hired me.  When we won the, ahem, Revolutionary War, we kinda put that one on the top of the list.

While we appreciate the invitation, we're going to have to go ahead and say no to old Lizzie Deuce's offer to assume monarchical duties for us.  I know, you miss your jolly old Empire, but really, I think you managed to squander that huge collection of colonies pretty quickly in the latter half of the nineteenth century and during the 20th century.  Tell you what - if you give us the rest of the British Virgin Islands, we'll go ahead and make them a state (to keep the even 50), you can have New Jersey.  It's not our favorite and we'd love for you to teach it some class, like on that reality show where they take trashy girls and get Mr Belvedere to teach them how to walk with books on their heads.  We'll admit, you're pretty good at making things look a little classier.  

But I digress.  I wanted to get to your issues.

1. I didn't know there were multiple pronunciations for "revocation".  The extra-I-in-Aluminium thing I knew about, but I think this might be an etymological evolution kind of thing.  Y'all gave up thee, thou, and thy eventually, and you're almost there with this one.  Say it with me.  A-loo-men-um.  

2. I like those u's out of color/flavor/neighbor the way we have them.  I'll give you "doughnut" instead of "donut", but I must admit I've always wondered where the "nut" is in a doughnut.

3. FINE.  I don't care WHAT you do with Pittsburgh, actually, it's not my favorite town either.  Take it with Jersey.  Man, y'all get picky for people who routinely say "ALLO" when the proper "hello" doesn't take any less energy to say.  And besides, doesn't "Pittsburgh" LOOK like how we say it?  Seems to fit the pronunciation guide from your item #1 with a silent 'h', not with an extra 'a' and a silent 'g' like you're suggesting.

4. Agreed on the eliminating half the "like"s from our speech.  Please pass this on to your young subjects, who seem to be just as atrocious at the Queen's English as ours do.

5.  There's no "US English" despite Microsoft's saying so?  Oh, well I'm an Apple girl myself, and we do the same thing.  So it must be good. And besides - since we take credit for Microsoft, we'll just call our English "the one and only English".  Better yet, let's call it American and eliminate the "English" altogether as its description anyway.

6.  Why do you INSIST on changing the words to "My Country 'tis of Thee"?  And why "God Save the Queen"?  Isn't she capable of saving herself?  At the very least, she's got a lot of guards in those knock-off Marine uniforms and the big grizzly hats outside her house.  Maybe they should actually guard the darn Queen instead of standing outside taking pictures with tourists if you feel that she's in danger.

7.  Sorry, but the the hotdog and hamburger manufacturers, the parade float manufacturers and the used-car and electronics salespersons lobbies will all revolt if we take away the Fourth of July.  There's absolutely no other way to have a mid-summer sale on that stuff without the Fourth of July.  Lee Greenwood's record label has pledged unlimited militia funding if we threaten to stop the royalties for playing "God Bless the USA" at minor-league baseball games and Busch League racetracks.  You do NOT want to get into a fight with fans of guns and "God Bless the USA".  Trust me on this.  Just trust me.

8.  If we gave up guns, lawyers and therapists, how in the world would we have gotten you out of World War II?  We keep the guns around because the awful mean British King said we couldn't have them in the late 18th century.  When we got our own country, we wanted to play with them a little.  So we did, and we helped you out of a few wars because we got really good at them.  And how bout this - I will give up HALF of our lawyers and therapists if you just do me a favor and double your dentists.  Sound like a fair deal?

9.  About the vegetable peeler - please don't carry anything related to food.  You're not good at food.  Do as we've done and outsource it to countries who do it better.  The Italians are really good at food, as are the French.  Just leave it to them.  

10.  Please don't trust the Germans to think for you.  I know, you like their pretty cars, but really...there's no English cars out there.  You know what happened last time you gave those Germans too much.  We had to go over there and bail you out.  Think of them like that cool older teenager down the street - very pretty, very flashy, but if you don't watch yourself...you can easily get in a whole heap of trouble.

11.  "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament!"  No, we don't like traffic circles, even with the cutesy name "roundabout".  However, if you agree to name them "roundhouses" and place statues of Chuck Norris in every center, we may be able to talk.  But on the metric vs standard system thing - I don't think YOU have even figured out which one to use.  So I propose a third, better system.  All weight/mass units will be multiples or portions of the exact weight of a can of Jif Peanut Butter.  We all know that by heart, and you need to start getting to know the wonder of peanut butter.  It's nummy and far better than marmalade or vegemite, that awful crap you allowed your penal colony down south to create.  All length units will be multiples or portions of the exact size of the aforementioned Buckingham Palace guards' hats.  We like our stuff BIG, in case you didn't notice, and those hats are, well, SMASHING.

12.  Petrol would seem to be short for "petroleum", which reminds me of Vaseline.  This rhymes with gasoline.  Now see here, I think you're just getting difficult.  Gasoline it is.  Really, $8 a gallon?  Dude, you should TOTALLY bitch to old Lizzie (or whoever that guy you're dealing with instead of her is) about that.  You're paying $8 a gallon and she gets that super-sparkly hat down at the tower?  NO FAIR.  Our prez only gets like $250k a year, max.  And his house is WAY smaller and there's no horsey show in front every day like your guys.  Maybe you can cut back on royal houses and put the money towards gasoline savings.  Wow, I just solved your gas problem.

13.  Dude, have you TRIED McDonald's fries?  They're like heaven.  And like I said before, pleeeeease don't start with the food.  You're not good at it.  

14.  Sure, if your subjects are trained to tip American waiters and waitresses.  

15.  You can call it whatever you want - beer, lager, piss, what have you.  But please serve it cold, if I'm coming in after a hot day, I want a cold one, not a tepid one.  

16.  The English Good Guy market has been exclusively cornered by Hugh Grant, and we're working on anti-competitive laws to combat his hold on it, but for now, it's just him.  Oh, and Andie MacDowell played an American in Four Weddings, hence the lack of an English Accent.  I'll gladly stop letting American actors project bad British accents as long as you take Madonna and Gwyneth for good.  We'll keep the Beckhams instead - they're fun.  

17.  What, for the love of God, are you talking about?  We play football AND soccer.  We were just generous enough to split the sports up and play both.  Now we're not all that great at soccer, we know, but please, until you start at least getting NEAR us on the Olympic medal count, let's leave the sports to us.  Your hooligans are funny though.  Keep them.

18.  Baseball...well, we DO play in Canada if one of their teams makes it to the World Series, but yeah, I know, Canada's almost the US anyway.  However, we do import the best talent in the game from many other countries and we're currently signing all Dominican boys to a guaranteed league minimum at birth.  We'll stick with the World theme, it makes us feel inclusive.  And lastly, we had to pick baseball - because cricket is just RIDICULOUS.  I'm currently trying to decide if anyone whose uniforms involve white V-neck sweaters should be referred to as a sport, so I'll spare the argument and offer a compromise - if you get cricket, then we DEFINITELY get baseball.  

19.  After many years of thorough investigation, we've concluded that JFK shot himself.  

20.  Oh gosh, more talk on taxes.  Didn't we win in the first movie, the Revolutionary War, AND in the sequel that came out in 1812?  I bet you're still pissed about that Boston Tea Party mess, aren't you?  Ha, that was so fun.  Well, honestly, it was a drunken frat prank, no harm meant. You don't have to get all huffy about it.  We're more of coffee drinkers now anyway, so you can't really tax our tea.  But Really, you've got to do something about Queenie getting her paws all over the revenue.  I know, she likes to spoil her grandchildren - if I had that Wills, I'd spoil him rotten (among other things) as well.  Tell ya what - let her make those big pretty hats that them guards wear and she can sell them on etsy.  All the grandmothers are doing etsy these days, Buffy, it's ALL the new rage - be a modern woman and earn your keep!

In summary, John, I thank you for your suggestions and just wanted to follow up with a response.  Hope you're doing well over there in London town, and PLEASE send me one of those big pretty hats.

WBS/LYLAS/BFF,

Molly.