A MEDIATION BETWEEN HER MAJESTY AND THE FREE STATES
In the interest of both parties, a mediator has been selected from among the duel citizens to address the Queen’s major demands and make appropriate recommendations. In response to the overall demand that the Free States return to monarchic rule, it is the opinion of this moderator that such a demand is meaningless because the existence of monarchic authority is unclear. Congress will not be disbanded. It is this mediator’s hope that both countries will appreciate the exquisite inefficiencies of their respective political systems. Now, to the more particular demands:
1. The standard use of ‘U’ in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour,’ and ‘neighbour’ will be adopted if Oxford University re-instates the standard usage of the “Oxford comma.” The official adoption of the spelling ‘doughnut’ will be accepted if a) American retailers are allowed to spell it anyhow they durn please, b) British retailers begin to serve more than one flavor of doughnut, and c) British retailers give the recipe for jelly/jam doughtnuts to American retailers, who don’t have a clue.
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2. American schools will attempt to discourage young people’s use of ‘like’ and ‘you know’ as well as the related phrases ‘kind of like’ and ‘sort of like’ if British people admit that their younger generations have just as many linguistic problems and that adults in both countries have their fair share of over-reactions to linguistic degradation. In addition, both countries must promise to recogni[s/z]e that there is no such thing as a monopoly on linguistic accuracy that isn’t artificially imposed.
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3. July 4th will be celebrated as a holiday in both countries, but in the United Kingdom it will be known as “Thanksgiving.”
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4. The use of guns, lawyers, and therapists as all-purpose problem solvers will be abandoned in the US. Similarly, British people will increase the number of conflicts that are addressed directly rather than resort to biting sarcasm and indignant silence. Much to the approval of both nations, all such methods will be replaced with fattening foods and candor. Also, American may substitute the shooting of grouse with the shooting of The Famous Grouse (or similar).
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5. The shooting of grouse or The Famous Grouse aside, everyone will take a serious look at violent crime statistics in their own country.
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6. Only “All Way” four-stop-sign intersections with be converted to roundabouts. All roundabouts in England that are surrounded by smaller sub-roundabouts will be converted into ANYTHING ELSE because that is the worst design for an intersection. Recommendations for converting to metric measurements will wait until the UK actually finishes transitioning to the metric system. Americans are, however, interested in what a ‘stone’ is, and how a normal person can weigh 10 to 20 of them.
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7. The USA will adopt UK prices on gas, but will not call it ‘petrol’ because ‘gasoline’ is categorically more accurate than ‘petroleum’ in the identification of fuel used for most vehicles.
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8. All arguments about chips, crisps, and fries will be outlawed. British people will admit that they love catsup. All copyrights for the spelling ‘ketchup’ will be forfeit and the spelling ‘catsup’ will also be outlawed.
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9. All arguments about beer will be put on hold until British people try some American microbrews and distribution rights for said microbrews are expanded.
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10. Hollywood will indeed be required to occasionally cast English actors as good guys. (The splitting of infinitives will be considered acceptable usage.) American actors cast as English characters and English actors cast as American characters will be limited to actors who are deemed worthy, such as Hugh Laurie and almost no one else.
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11. Confusion about the sport ‘football’ will be carefully explained in the first year of school, and everyone will live with it. Criticizing American football for being wimpy will only be allowed from professional rugby players. Those who criticize the wearing of pads in the context of the confusion over the name ‘football’ will be forced to recount every time they ever saw an association football (soccer) player take a dive when the nearest player never touched them.
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12. Americans will be forced to play cricket in grade school, though they will not be expected to understand the rules, and Britons will be forced to play Rounders in a diamond with a hardball, gloves, and foul balls.
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13. Americans will tell who killed JFK if Britons teach them how to make their chocolate smooth.
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14. Britons will accept American participation in the European theater of World War II as partial payment for taxes owed. The remaining taxes will not be paid because Americans really don’t like paying taxes, but we’re all glad that Hitler didn’t take over the world.
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15. Americans would love to learn all about tea time, but refuse to believe that ‘tea’ should be used a general term for the dinnertime meal. American recipes for homemade chocolate-chip cookies will be circulated throughout the UK. Surprisingly delicious British store-bought cookies/biscuits be exported en masse to support the newly instituted tea time.
