Friday, January 30, 2009

You're in Amurca - Part II

You may recall my January 17th post about a scholarly soul urging Amurcans to sign an online essay to make English the United States’ official language.

Some scholar wrote this in that same thread the other day:

"We do need to ban ESL concepts in public schools. The only way for non-English speaking children to learn EFFECTIVE English to succeed in college and the work environment is immersion in English only."

My response:
”That's just about the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Are you suggesting non-speakers of English be immersed in the American populous to learn the language? Right! The average American citizen can’t write, speak or punctuate his or her way out of a wet paper sack, let alone teach someone English. Just take a look at some of the posts in this thread.”

4 comments:

THE GRAMMARPHILE said...

Wow. What a buffoon! So many people who were born and raised in America still can't speak proper English. Do they expect that someone who's come over from another country, where their native language is NOT English, can just pick it up on their own? That's insane. There should absolutely be efforts to teach ESL students English.

On a related note, a friend of mine teaches ESL classes. His Facebook status the other day said something along the lines of, "Today I had to educate my class that "cocksucker" does not mean that you savor roosters." I nearly fell outta my chair laughing when I read that.

Frequent Traveler said...

Carlos,
My command of the written language is poor compared to your precision and proper use of grammar. I am quite hesitant in commenting, fearing your scorn will come down on me for some literary faux pas !

Carlos said...

Grammarphile: Ain't that just rich? It's killing me. I can't stop going back to debate that cretin. LOL @ your ESL friend. My mother, a retired graduate-level ESL professor had some really great stories! I need to see if I can remember some. :-)

Annie: Oh Annie. Don't be so silly :-) I'm not that bad am I? Besides, you're loving; how could I possibly give you any grief? Besides, your grammar is fine. I've seen nothing yucky on your blog...really! Besides, I don't grade comments and blogs on their grammar...really :-)

Frequent Traveler said...

whew - breathes sigh of relief and knows you'll forgive me when I make a mistake !