LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH (Originally published in mid 2015)

 

I keep getting these moronic emails that keep yelling at people to learn to speak English.
To all you sweethearts out there who want to force anyone in the United States to speak English, there will have to be a law that allows you to apply that force.  So far, you're out of luck because the United States has no law defining an official national language.
Then, all of you bright luminaries surely don't think of the many variations of "standard" English that you have to choose from.  Which one(s) are you going to allow to exist here in the United States before you start arresting people for not speaking the legal form of English?
Think of it as an expression of our highly touted freedom. Yes, indeed.  We are free to do so many things.  We are free to move around at any time of day or night; free to stand on a street corner alone or in a group of five or fifteen; free to write nasty things about our government; free to say nasty things about the government in public; free to espouse the religion of our choice; free to marry the person with whom we are in love, even one who does not speak English for crying out loud!  Maybe worse yet, one who only knows how to speak Nigerian English.  Oh, pain and suffering! I've been living with a loving spouse who only knows Filipino English!  My children are irreparably damaged by the mental confusion caused by this horrible disability.  They may not even be truly American with this built-in speech warp!  
And what about me?  I was reprimanded the other day for a translation from French to English because it was rejected for being US English instead of UK English. That ignorance took $50 out of my wallet!  
So, all you freedom lovers out there, just what version of the English language are you going to legislate for our fair country?  Will my Scottish friend have to fear imprisonment for his total inability to speak US English?  What's going to happen to his freedom of expression?
So, dear linguists, enjoy the freedom that you have to write what you want about the language(s) we speak or don't speak in this country.  As for me I am going to speak whatever language it takes for me to get fed and/or find my way to the men's room.

Note:  The initial publication in Krussty Kurmujjin evoked a comment from my Scottish friend: "When I go to visit family in Scotland they repremand me for speakin US Emglish and using US slang terms.  Scottish English is the purest form of English."

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 Those were the days when we had real money.  That 50¢ was enough for five days round trip bus fare from home to school.  Truth to tell, that was the student discount fare.

The bus company was local.  The Holyoke Street Railway Company was the name.  

My favorite story out of all that could be told about that period of notoriety is one that didn't make the papers.  It is the story of the doctor who owned and operated an x-ray lab.  His services were required because after about two weeks the coin proved to be too heavy and too large to be expelled from my stomach to the outside though the bowels.  I was being poisoned by the digestive process taking place in my stomach.

The surgeon who was going to perform the invasive extraction needed an x-ray of the situation.  My father, EFR Dion and I went to the x-ray lab.  The doctor there did not believe my father (no one was about to believe a nine years old miscreant) that I had indeed swallowed that size of coin.  After a short back and forth the doctor said, "If he did swallow a half-dollar coin, I'll pay the tab."  

Click, click, whrrr, whrrr, clunck and hold the x-ray up to the light and...Whooaa, that looks like a half buck!  Reach into the pocket, put a coin up to the screen and the Doc had to pay.  My father and I laughed all the way home.

The next evening they took me to the hospital.  I was there for a full week.  I was on a baby food diet for 8 full weeks.  I missed nearly four weeks of school.  I studied at home after the hospital and passed all the final tests so I did not have to repeat the grade.

The coin?  My father ordered me to give it to the church in the form of a candle offering.  There was no way he was going to allow me to glorify my imprudence.

That was 1946.  I haven't seen a 50¢ piece in decades.  No, I never swallowed another one!