The plah and the pandering
A while back, I promised no politics on this site, but a news story from yesterday hit me as a bit ironic and, well, here goes: I wrote about the set-back in teaching La Maria to speak Spanish while a Senator from my state was proposing an English-only at work bill.
I wrote him a note last night. I used the word “pandering.” Sen. Alexander — whom I met in the newsroom a gazillion years ago — is a nice enough guy with a long history of serving his country. In the past, when then-Gov. Alexander made English the official language of Tennessee, he said he did not want our country to become a United Nations.
That’s kinda already happened, I think. Having lived in four diverse regions of this country (and I count South Florida as one region unto itself), I will tell you that I’ve always needed some translation help from the locals: “Black top” in rural Illinois is the preferred word for “road”; “GetdaF***outtahere” in Jersey is “No Way!”; and “That There Right Here” in Tennessee is simply “This” or “That.” I’m still not sure.
So you see, we’re already kinda UN-ish and yet commerce manages to happen.
If the Senator wants to proceed with this silly silly I would like him to also consider cleaning up the English language in his home state. Make it nice and vanilla so we can all understand each other. And, if a professional utters any of these incorrect and ugly words/phases at work, he gets taxed.
So, after we add “that there right here” to the clean-up list, let’s add these, which personally make me scratch my ears:
“Might could” (as in just plain “might”)
“Fixin’ to” (as in, “I’m going to”)
“Carry me” (which, for you non-natives means “take me to…”)
“Spelt” (not the grain, but in “how is that word spelt.”)
“Down the road a piece” (this is an easy one.)
Then, we’ll clean up Jersey-isms, don’t you think? And then we’ll get to the rest.
And, in the end, we can all be exactly the same.
Isn’t “all y’all” a plural form of something? Oh, wait. Is that only in Texas?
I just have to assume that the poor senator must have experienced a traumatic and confusing bilingual moment in his childhood and is just trying to spare others his pain. =D
Por favor!
How about the ubiquitous “what all” as in, “I don’t know what all y’all are saying when you speak Mexican like that.”
Also, I don’t like “chill bumps” used in place of “goose bumps” or just plain “chills.” Nor do I like parking garages renamed “decks.”
No se. No me gusta.
The problem is most likely that people are speaking spanish @ work and not all employees or bosses speak spanish – that makes people feel left out or possibly uncomfortable. If the company doesn’t do the majority of its business in spanish I don’t see a problem.
I don’t have a problem with official government business (like voting, school registration , and driver’s license applications) being conducted only in English; but I don’t want the government regulating what private businesses do. There is enough regulation already. None of the gummint’s bidness what language people speak at work.
I have to say, this is a bad way to discuss topics like this…no face time…but, I would say I agree that in cases of personal safety, public safety, jobs where communication is required for productivity (like assembly lines, maybe?), then OK, please let’s all habla ingles. But, what gets me is that in one of the cases mentioned, the boss threatened his people with a knife and well, if English is such a priority for the job, well then, hire an English-speaker and keep the blade to yourself. And, please don’t tell me I can’t speak Spanish, Hindi, Lao, or whatever to my co-worker in the break room or at the water cooler. (Oscar and I would have been fired, for sure!)
I just can’t help but smell this as ugly and politically motivated. ‘Tis the season, no?
Once we eliminate the use/usage/utilization of foreign languages in America, we should proceed to the systematic redacting of all foreignisms contained in our own English. Quite a few of these have crept in over the centuries and have become accepted as part of the language, when they should not be.
Removing all of these formerly foreign words from our language will give us a much more streamlined system of communication, like animals have used to good effect for as long as I can remember.
About Marta’s comment: “All y’all” is unacceptable slang. The plural of “you” is “y’all,” and the pluplural periphrastic of “y’all” is “all o’ y’all.”
MuPu, LOL…poor Taco Bell, that great American institution, will have to rename.