English at US National Language -- :)
Apr 21st 2009, 12:27 am
#1
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English at US National Language -- :)
From an e-mail I received today from a Middle East Discussion Group I belong to:
There may be those among you who support including Spanish as our national language. I for one am dead set against it! We should preserve the sanctity of the English language.
To all the schlemiels, schlemazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, shlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are lurking out there in the crowd, I just wanted to say that I, for one, get sentimental when I think about English and its place in our society. A mechayeh!
To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I'm fit to plotz. This whole schmeer gets me broyges. When I hear these mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about our national language, our mameh loshen. What chutzpah!
These shmegeges can tout their shlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country and of English itself, but I, for one, am not buying their schtick. It's all so much dreck, as far as I'm concerned. I exhort you all to be menschen about this and stand up to their fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn't be kosher to do anything else.
Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they've got bubkes! The whole maiseh is a pain in the tuchas!
There may be those among you who support including Spanish as our national language. I for one am dead set against it! We should preserve the sanctity of the English language.
To all the schlemiels, schlemazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, shlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are lurking out there in the crowd, I just wanted to say that I, for one, get sentimental when I think about English and its place in our society. A mechayeh!
To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I'm fit to plotz. This whole schmeer gets me broyges. When I hear these mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about our national language, our mameh loshen. What chutzpah!
These shmegeges can tout their shlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country and of English itself, but I, for one, am not buying their schtick. It's all so much dreck, as far as I'm concerned. I exhort you all to be menschen about this and stand up to their fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn't be kosher to do anything else.
Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they've got bubkes! The whole maiseh is a pain in the tuchas!
Apr 21st 2009, 12:32 am
#2
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
What's funny is that there's only a few words in there I *didn't* know!
American is a beautiful language. Flexible too.
PS: here is a topic for your interest.
Apr 21st 2009, 12:42 am
#3
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
What's funny is that there's only a few words in there I *didn't* know!
American is a beautiful language. Flexible too.
PS: here is a topic for your interest.
The gentleman who sent this to me is a dual national. His parents immigrated from the Palestine Mandate to the US and he was born in New York. He made Aliyah when he at age 22. All three of his adult children are US citizens [although the one born in Connecticut has the most indecipherable middle eastern accent].
Apr 21st 2009, 12:49 am
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
I don't think anybody outside Jewish centers of population would be able to understand that text fully. I do, because most of the Yiddish words you used are derived from German.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
Apr 21st 2009, 12:57 am
#5
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
I don't think anybody outside Jewish centers of population would be able to understand that text fully. I do, because most of the Yiddish words you used are derived from German.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
Apr 21st 2009, 1:48 am
#7
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
I don't think anybody outside Jewish centers of population would be able to understand that text fully. I do, because most of the Yiddish words you used are derived from German.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
Sigh. I said it was from someone else, did I not? Why the "you."
And Yiddish is derived from German -- what is new about that? My dad tells a story about his ship [AP-125, then USS Admiral Mayo] being loaded by German PW's in LeHarve after VE Day. It seems that the ship had no German speaker on it, and Dad had to roughly translate using Yiddish. It seems to have worked.
BTW, modern Zionist political thought was hostile to Yiddish. However, it totally ignored Ladino. Go figure.
Apr 21st 2009, 1:57 am
#8
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
I don't think anybody outside Jewish centers of population would be able to understand that text fully. I do, because most of the Yiddish words you used are derived from German.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
Apr 21st 2009, 2:02 am
#9
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
Anyway, darn those German heathens & their gibberish lingo.
(Kar, is there an exception for Valley Girl if one is a native Californista?)
Apr 21st 2009, 2:16 am
#10
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
The core from which it sprung is a vote in the United States House of Representatives in 1794, in which a group of German immigrants asked for the translation of some laws into German. This petition was rejected by a 42-41 vote and Frederick Muhlenberg was later quoted as having said "the faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be."
There never was a vote on making German the, or an official language in the US.
Apr 21st 2009, 2:51 am
#11
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
There is a problem with declaring English as the National language. Which English language is it to be? I speak several. Add to that that languages are dynamic, new words are added, foreign words are added, words change meaning.
I wonder. If we did declare a National language, would the lawyers eventually force us to work with a fixed and unchanging dictionary. That would be to have Charon ferry our language across the River Styx.
Apr 21st 2009, 3:00 am
#12
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
Has about as much chance of happening as a black man being elected president.
Um.
Er.
Um, uh.
Um.
Er.
Um, uh.
Apr 21st 2009, 8:05 pm
#13
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
That's a legend and blown out of proportion.
The core from which it sprung is a vote in the United States House of Representatives in 1794, in which a group of German immigrants asked for the translation of some laws into German. This petition was rejected by a 42-41 vote and Frederick Muhlenberg was later quoted as having said "the faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be."
There never was a vote on making German the, or an official language in the US.
The core from which it sprung is a vote in the United States House of Representatives in 1794, in which a group of German immigrants asked for the translation of some laws into German. This petition was rejected by a 42-41 vote and Frederick Muhlenberg was later quoted as having said "the faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be."
There never was a vote on making German the, or an official language in the US.
Apr 21st 2009, 8:09 pm
#14
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
So would we need to change the San Jacinto Monument to the Saint Hyacinth Monument?
Apr 21st 2009, 8:33 pm
#15
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Re: English at US National Language -- :)
I don't think anybody outside Jewish centers of population would be able to understand that text fully. I do, because most of the Yiddish words you used are derived from German.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.
But yes, I am indeed in support of English as the national language of the U.S. I prefer living in America over living on the Balkan. It's the "United" States, not the "Everybody gets to gibber away in whatever heathen lingo he grew up with in some godforsaken shithole of a country" States.