xenophobic jerk

[trochee]

I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.

might as well say "English -- the language the Bible was written in". Because Francis Scott Key has the direct line on the Original Intent, dontcha know.

I wonder if he's upset about the modifications to the melody too?

ETA: Erik Bakovic has more on Language Log.

Comments

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yes!

I don't know why it's important to feel like English needs Proud Defenders of Purity in any particular way. It's already the hegemon; I don't think it's helpful for English speakers to hand-wave about its risk of being overrun.

I actually agree that "womyn" is an ugly word -- I was just using it to point at the discourse. I think we need to engage with words based on their meaning in our culture ; changing the spelling or arguing about their etymology (as if that determined the origin) is really not important. We need to ask what "woman" and "man" mean in this culture.