This is a ridiculous idea. For one thing, we cannot even agree on how to pronounce many words in this country. Throw England, Canada and Australia in, and you have a mess.
Standardize words like been, spigot, coyote etc. for starters. There are many, many more. England is a language with millions of words. “Standardizing” would make Shakespeare a foreign language, Faulkner would remain unreadable, and the OED would have to go in the dustheap, as too many words would have to be addressed.
Save these novelties for tiny Scandinavian tongues. Those of us who defend standard English already have our hands full with defending “awesome”, “impact” and “gender” from abuse, despite the fact that we are currently losing on all three fronts.
English is the current international language for a reason. It joyfully adds new words as needed, and those who only need business English can get by on a couple of thousand words.
Don’t forget “anxious”.
“Anxious” and “eager” do NOT have the same meaning.
Couple of years ago, I saw a Discovery Channel program about building some huge icebreaker.
The customer was Finland.
Contractors from Finland, Russia, France, China, Japan and South Korea were building the ship in a South Korean shipyard.
Naturally, the official language of the project was English.
“England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” said George Bernard Shaw (also used by Churchill) is a common joke regarding how the English language evolved differently in different places.