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Subject:Re: US English From:Chuck Banks <chuck -at- ASL -dot- DL -dot- NEC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:37:01 CST
LaVonna, et al:
Ben Franklin and the Printers' Guild failed to have German
as the established language for the US. I don't want ANY language
as the official language. Some 13 - 15% of the US population speaks
one or another dialect of German. Another 17 - 20% speak a dialect
of Spanish. And fully 80% of us speak one of several dialects of
English. And that doesn't consider all the other languages spoken
here. (We speak some 60+ languages just in the Dallas-Fort Worth
metroplex, including several Native American languages.)
As Justice Holmes was want to say, "The law, like a well-
tailored suit of clothes, should be comfortable." Quit trying to
force everyone in the US into a single mold. Wars get started
over things like that. Besides, as Dick Gregory said at Kent
State University a few decades back, "Don't try to tell me how to
talk. I've been to England, and you don't know how to talk
either...So, why should I go around tryin' to sound like you?"
`Nuff Said!
Chuck Banks
--
__ ________ ______
|\\ | || // Chuck Banks
| \\ | ||_______ || Senior Technical Writer
| \\ | || || NEC America, Inc.
| \\| \\______ \\______ E-Mail: chuck -at- asl -dot- dl -dot- nec -dot- com
America, Incorporated CompuServe: 72520,411
