Ari's Planet

One rainy Sunday morning, England, America and Italy were sitting there watching possibly the worst episode of Star Trek Voyager, in which Commander Chakotay is stranded on a planet at war and is apparently aided by men who completely, but not unintelligibly, mangle the English language, with phrases such as "trunks" for forest. It was the unnecessary use of the word "crave" on this imaginary planet at war, however, which led to the War of Italy and France vs. English of 2008. As every schoolchild knows by now, this war started in New Zealand over what initially seemed like a trifling misunderstanding. Italy, not knowing what "crave" meant, asked America what it meant, which America dutifully answered "want" (later historians have claimed that this meddling by America led to the subsequent fighting, though others counter that this is a highly revisionist version of events). Italy, seeking to explore this new word, attempted to use it in a sentence. America then felt it had to get further involved in this distant matter by explaining the, possibly incomprehensible, rules on the use of "crave", such as "I crave a cake", "I crave cake", "I have a craving for cake". Italy maintained that "crave for cake" was a perfectly appropriate use of the word. America tried to intervene but was ignored by the continent. England, coming to the aid of the English language, attempted to set the record straight, but possibly only muddled things further. Just as the English speaking world believed it was gaining the upper hand, France showed up. Italy, flush with excitement, attempted to teach France the use of crave. Now, France at first was rather incredulous and confused. What? Huh? Oh, said France, you want create cake, like bake cake? No, says Italy, with much enthusiasm, "crave for cake", like "want for cake", you know "crave". France would have none of this Italian foolishness. France, using deft footwork, changed its position but maintained that it would only engage in creating of cakes, as this invoked that great pride of France, its culinary creations. Meanwhile, in the background, an expeditionary force dispatched by England to arrange for clean uniforms and towels was seen engaged in vicious battle with the iron-clad Washing Machine; opinions differ, but it is generally believed that Washing Machine won that particular skirmish. America and England looked on in horror as Italy and France managed to neither crave nor create cake, though a great desire was invoked for donuts, at least on one side of the Atlantic, err, I mean couch.