[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Craighead, Scot D craighead.scot at vectorscm.com
Mon Jun 17 23:56:28 UTC 2002


>Should you have to learn French before you can drive on French roads?
>I've successfully driven in France, Italy and Spain, I can't speak
>French, Italian or Spanish worth a lick, though I do drag around an
>excellent French/English dictionary ... I have to, I married her!

True, but did the French issue you a French driver's license?  Did they
translate their books on driving into English for you?  I would bet that if
you wanted to take a driver license test in France, you would have to do it
in French.  Does that make them bad people?

>If France or insert-country-of-choice-here had a large community of
>English speakers that I could live amongst and interact with, then
>there is less reason to learn the "local" language.  As it happens,
>the US doesn't have an "official" language.  At various times, in
>various regions, English wouldn't have been it anyway.  Sure, today
>English is the "dominant" language, but that is completely arbitrary.
>
>If you want to and can't communicate with some one because you don't
>share with them fluency in a particular language, then that is as much
>your fault as theirs, and you are deprived of the value of that
>communication as much as they are.  The "official english" people,
>IMHO, are trying to leverage "power" (from being a member of the
>"dominant culture") into making such failures "the other guy's fault".
>To me, that is just a mark of personal laziness.  And I say that as a
>monoglot.

So I guess that the immigrants that we speak of do not consider us worth
comminucating with.  

I would submit that English is the language of success in this country.  If
you want to be successful in America, one way to help yourself is to learn
English.




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