EU bureaucrats are a perpetual target for humor. Here's the latest one. Supposedly they decided to remove the word 'pertannually' from the EU constitution, having decided that it was incomprehensible and meaningless. And what did they replace it with? The much clearer term 'insubdurience'.
One source for this story is John Humphrys, a political journalist who's just written a book
Lost for Words, about
"the demise of the language." The tale also pops up in
this Guardian article. The story could very well be true, but it also sounds suspiciously like one of those
Euromyths that have become so popular. For instance, there's the Euromyth about the supposed new EU law that forbids bananas from being "too excessively curved." Or the one about how the EU has classified kilts as 'womenswear'. To fact check the 'pertannually insubdurient' story I tried to check the EU constitution itself. It's
available online, but having looked at it, I'm now not sure how to find "clause 82, paragraph 17, subsection (b)".
Comments
At least the EU doesn't napalm helpless peasants.
In any case, the biggest myth of all is that the European legislation is adopted by European officials ann not by European governments.
As for the Constitution, it was drafted and decided by European politicians. No bureaucracy involved.
haven't found either word myself
you mean EU excluding France and Germany..