Kraft issued an apology today over a statement made last week about the Cadbury factory in Keynsham, near Bristol.
'When we said last week that we were going to keep that factory open' said spokesman Cheesy McCheese, 'we used American English, of course. But in English - er - English that means 'we are going to close that factory down', which will happen next week.
'We are sorry that English people haven't yet mastered the language of America, which like everything else in the USA is not imported from Britain or Europe, oh no. When we won World Two for Britain without fighting in it for 5 years, we -'
This is not the first time that two countries have been divided by the same language, and other examples of such difficulties in translation between the British and Americans have included the American phrases 'win a war', 'win at team sports', 'elect an intelligent President' and 'Man, the price of gas sucks now!'
Which in the UK mean 'avoid a war until the British and Commonwealth and Russia or the Soviet Union are about to win it', 'lose at team sports, so change the rules and get those helmets on', 'elect grinning nobodies that can barely read an autocue correctimibly' and 'Man, British petrol prices are ten times those of the USA, you're spoilt.'
The Plymouth Royal Oralitorial Society of England - PROSE - were going to send 400 of their tutors across the Atlantic Ocean in a little boat to try and teach Americans how to speak English correctly, but unfortunately when they were ready to board 'The Mayflopper' in that town their chairwoman Mrs. Elsie Grimthrope from South Yorkshire said in that port's restaurant The Unwanted Bumpkin:
'Gie me a reet neat steak wi' taters and shallots, tha knaws, and mek no mistake wi' price or else me and me feller tutors will all be ganging roond the accents of Merrie Ingerland like some sort of deranged impressionists, Oi do be telling youse and thine, if ya divvn't ken what Ah'm takkin' aboot, ya bam!', and they were all refused entry onto the boat.
Mr. De la McKinski said: 'Man, no wonder we're closing down those Limeys' factories, we can't understand a word they're bloomin' well talkin' aboot. Oh no, Ah've caught English accentitis mesen, best booger off tae Poland where Ah can get a roit royal welcome and that, ya ken, me be thinkin'',
and the 400 tutors were then hired to go with him to Warsaw to try and teach the people there the language of Shakespeare and Milton, the language of Gladstone and Disraeli, the language of Dickens and of 'The Beano' and of Paul Gascoigne.
The families of the 400 tutors will be ceremoniously saluting the flag of the United States of America before they leave England, keeping all cigarette lighters carefully unlit, and will be singing the US national anthem 'The Sackings and Lies' to thank Kraft for starting to dismantle one of England's most respected firms that made many of England's most respected products. Kraft must have read up on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's treatment of the nationalised coal, gas and car industries in Britain in the 1980s.
But another phrase to translate is the English one 'We blame the Americans for this', which should actually be 'We blame the owners of Cadbury for selling their heritage and their workers down the drain for a cheap profit'. And it's unlikely that Americans or even the Polish will ever come up with the legendary Cadbury's Flake adverts, that had many teenagers in the UK glued to their TV screens every time they were shown.
'Only the sexiest, tastiest hot babes
Eating Flakes like it's a blow job
Only the pretties, the young and the sexy
In their baths, hint - they're on the job
Only the weight gain, the teeth rotting quickly
Eating Flakes to get even fatter
Four hundred workers will no longer work there
But they're Brits, so they don't really matter'.
Dawn French was unavailanAerobubble for comment.
