OK, you’ve dragged this innocent into the fray! I will definitely have a look around the rest of the site for answers to my original question, but I must say that I am left more than a little perplexed by your statements about my having “objections to your policy” and ask me to explain “why I disagree”. Objections to what policy? Did I say I disagree? If you read my comment again the only thing I said related to agreeing/disagreeing was “I tend to agree with most of your opinions”. So, are you just looking for a fight or what?

Ken

Note the “Tirades” tag. If you’d like to view only the serious (or semi-serious) language posts, I’d suggest you skip over any post with “tirades” in it. As the category description states, any thusly tagged post contains large doses of personal (and often political) opinion, in addition to any discussion of language.

I encourage you to look around the site a bit more and see the more linguistically oriented posts. I hope that you’d find that the majority of this site can (and does) provide answers to grammatical questions with the sort of accuracy one might expect from a scholarly resource, and that although you’ve stumbled upon a post in which language necessarily mixes with politics, I am capable of providing information as well.

Also, as always, I’d never object to your leaving another comment explaining some of your objections to my policy, as Speechless Parrot and Ufaikr have done above. I’d be interested to hear why you disagree, and commenting should be open indefinitely so that we can keep a dialogue going.

Thanks for your feedback, and I do hope that you’ll have a look around.

Will

Very nice catch of the misplaced modifier there. I did, in fact, mean to say that 82% of people in the US speak only English at home. Perhaps I should be minding my grammar a little more if I’m going to be posting about such subjects.

Thanks for keeping me in line!

Speechless Parrot,

First, the reason I brought the grammar up in the first place was to point out a deviation from my normal policy that grammar mistakes are completely irrelevant. in these situations, fair or not, making grammar mistakes can damage one’s ethos (as I’m sure that anybody who noticed the misplaced modifier my my reply realized). In the same way that one conceivably could give an incredible and sincere speech about animal rights while wearing a fur coat, one can certainly discuss the purity of a language while making grammatical errors left and right. Whether or not it’s just, often, in these situations, people will judge based on grammar, but when you’re writing about something like this, it gives people extra motivation to find issues. Something as glaring as a You’re/Your switch will not go unnoticed, and will not help your argument.

However, this wasn’t meant to be a part of my criticism of this argument. Perhaps I could have split it off into a different post. In one, I could have discussed the occasional import of orthodox grammar, and the other would be reserved for, as you put it, “going for the jugular” of her argument and point-of-view. I’d hoped that was clear, but apparently it wasn’t.

My other point of reply is that I’ve realized that I’ve failed to mention those people who support English-Only sorts of programs not due to Racism or Anti-Immigrant sentiment, but due to a genuine (albeit flawed) belief that English is in danger. Perhaps the author of the quoted article is truly concerned for the future of English and is making suggestions on how to protect it, even though she really has no problem with immigrants or speakers of other languages. In fact, I’d even like to believe that to be the case.

The point of the final few paragraphs was to point out that, at the end of the day, no matter one’s thoughts or motivations, these sorts of suggestions and legislative actions do nothing but exclude other people based on their language group. Whether a person’s reason for pushing these ideas is racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, or even erroneous fear for our language, arguing such things is still discriminatory and exclusive. These people have freedom to make these arguments, but I just hope that other people will feel free to refute them and expose their destructive consequences.

Finally, I’m glad you enjoyed the Freedom-Flour. Thanks for commenting.

Will

> around 82% of people in the US speak English only at home

Really!? That’s gobsmacking.

Or do you mean `speak only English at home’? Heh.

I wonder if there are any circumstances where a language would be spoken by a majority at home but by a minority in public.

I agree that this is indeed one of the more embarrassing places for someone to make any sort of grammatical error — how to shoot yourself in the foot in public.

On the one hand, it’s sad that our family lost this bit of its heritage. On the other hand, it’s sad that my great grandparents lived in relative cultural isolation and a happy thing that my grandfather escaped it to become fairly successful.

Today, I work in one of those language schools that provides native-speaking teachers. One of the most saddening, and maddening aspects of the job is knowing bright, vibrant people whose lack of English keeps them stuck in a dead end job at our school when they should be out changing the world.

When a large international corporation sends an exec to America, English lessons are high on the agenda. This is because the company is highly invested in his or her success in American business and life. We obviously can’t do as much for all the new arrivals who lack corporate sponsorship. But we should understand, clear-eyed, that the ideal is not finding a way to print enough government documents and foster enough ethnic neighborhoods so that people can survive without English, but to maximize everyone’s ability to participate in a society whose look, feel and understanding of itself is shaped by the primary language it uses for communication.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Official English movement. I don’t think English needs protection from immigrants. But I do think immigrants need protection from a society that is too willing to let them languish in second-class citizenship while engaging in magical thinking about how life in the barrios, the Chinatowns and the Japanese and Korean neighborhoods is multicultural and diverse, not monocultural and restrictive of access to the American dream. For English speakers who know a bit of a foreign language or two, these enclaves provide for multicultural experiences. We should be doing our best to allow immigrants similar opportunities to enjoy the multicultural life by placing a higher emphasis on helping them learn enough English to go back and forth between cultures as well. I don’t think this is quite what the Official English people had in mind, though I could be wrong.

I interpreted her petition to mean she wants the list of national languages of the United States to stop at one, English, and have no others added. I do not believe she was taking any position on the fact that the English language has incorporated words from other languages.

I could be wrong, but I am aware of a movement to make English the sole official language of the U.S., and I am not aware of a movement to prohibit the incorporation into English of foreign words. So I assume the petitioner holds the former position.