Why did Microsoft kill "English Query" on SQL Server?
The reason it was dropped was because of lack of use. This is confirmed in the MS response to a Customer asking if it could be re-instated.


  Posted by Microsoft on 1/13/2012 at 1:37 PM 
  
  English Query feature when introduced in SQL Server was not a popular
  feature and we didn't find lot of customers using it. So it was
  eventually removed from the product. We have no plans to invest in
  such technology so I am resolving this as "won't fix". You can look at
  the Semantic Search feature in SQL Server 2012 to see if that meets
  your needs.