PrairiePundit

  NY Times: Scientists Find a Language Spoken Across the Globe: Baby Talk In an ambitious cross-cultural study, researchers found that adults around the world speak and sing to babies in similar ways. The results were tested in 187 countries.  I have a memory of my mother doing that with her grandbabies. 

  NY Post: A University of Washington language guide is calling everyday words used by Americans “problematic.” The University of Washington Information Technology department released an “ inclusive language guide ” that lists a number of “problematic words” that are “racist,” “sexist,” “ageist,” or “homophobic.” According to the guide, words such as “grandfather,” “housekeeping,” “minority,” “ninja,” and “lame” are considered “problematic words.” For example, the language guide states that the word “lame” is considered problematic because it’s “ableist.” “This word is offensive, even when it’s used in slang for uncool because it’s using a disability in a negative way to imply that the opposite, which would be not lame, to be superior,” the guide states. The guide also states that the term “minority” implies a ‘less than’ attitude toward a certain community. “When ‘minority’ is used to refer to other races or abilities, used as a generalized term for ‘the other’ and implies a ‘less...

 David Harsanyi: When is a protester “angry and justified” and when are they a “domestic terrorist”? It all depends on how far left they are. This week, activists stalked Sen. Krysten Simena into a women’s restroom at Arizona State University, where the senator teaches a class. Angry that she won’t vote for the Democrat’s unprecedented $3.5 trillion reconciliation mega-bill , the protesters filmed her walking into a bathroom stall. The same liberal commentators and politicians who were wringing their hands over “civility” in politics under Donald Trump suddenly had an array of justifications. President Joe Biden said “it happens to everybody . . . it’s part of the process.” CNN’s Ana Navaro and Kirsten Powers suggested Sinema deserved the harassment because of her political position. One New York magazine writer rationalized the provocation “[a]ggressive protest tactics” were merely “symptom” of a bigger larger problem: “When people are shut out of a supposedly democratic process,...

Telegraph: The French have long struggled to resist the tide of English expressions flooding into the language of Molière, but a petition calling for television programmes to be broadcast in English with subtitles is rapidly gathering support. It was launched by Delphine Tabaries-Poncet, a language teacher in the southern town of Béziers who is concerned that her pupils’ imperfect command of English could hold them back professionally. She realised the value of TV series and films in English when a 15-year-old Romanian boy joined her school, and could speak English far better than his French classmates. He had achieved fluency mainly by watching television, which in Romania often broadcasts films and series in English. “He spoke so well that the others couldn’t even follow him,” she said. Concerned that the failure of many French schoolchildren to master the global lingua franca handicaps their career prospects, she is now urging President Emmanuel Macron to take action to pu...

Leon Wolf: One of the most effective ways liberals win debates in the public square is to declare that certain words and phrases that resonate with the general public are illegal or off limits in polite discussion. They are attempting this with no small measure of success in the abortion arena by essentially wiping with word “abortion” out of the public debate in favor of “reproductive health services,” or, if they are feeling especially Orwellian, “women’s health.” They are also attempting to perform the same trick in the immigration debate. They have already largely succeeded in convincing the media to completely remove the terms “illegal immigration” or “illegal immigrant” from the public discourse even though those terms are completely accurate indicators of what is occurring and are not in any way imbued with racial overtones, to any objective person. Instead, the ridiculously empty phrase “undocumented American” has been substituted in its place, as though the people under di...

Michael Barone: Supreme Court says again: Words don't mean what they say In three major cases the court tortured the language to reach the results they wanted in spite of the clear meaning of the words used in the statutes they were interpreting.

Washington Times: Texas principal fired for telling students to speak English I think she would have a good case against the district since Texas law is consistent with what she told the students, i.e. they are better off if they speak English in class.

BBC: New York, a graveyard for languages Different neighbor hoods have different English accents some of which hare hard to decipher by the rest of the country.  The story indicates that 800 different languages are spoken within the city.

Daily Mail: Unstoppable rise of American English: Study shows young Britons copying U.S. writing style If we can teach the Brits to speak English we are really on a roll.

Ed Rodgers: The talk of panic among Obama supporters is overstated, but the left is scrambling to help him in a suddenly close race with Mitt Romney. Not all of their efforts are particularly clever or even effective. Here is a quick look at some of the contortions that the near-panic has produced.    1) The left meets Orwell:  The left has had to create a new vocabulary to accommodate liberal tax-and-spend policies and the ballot-box defeat that could accompany them. The new vocabulary was on vivid display during the recent G-8 and NATO meetings — the phony debate about "growth" vs. "austerity." To liberals, "growth" doesn't mean robust traditional growth policies including low taxes, rational spending and a balanced regulatory touch. "Growth" to them just means more government spending. And "austerity" means nothing more than some budget constraints. Greece,  ground zero of this debate , is the best example. There, President ...

BBC: From opera at La Scala to football at the San Siro stadium, from the catwalks of fashion week to the soaring architecture of the cathedral, Milan is crowded with Italian icons. Which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language. The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses - including all its graduate courses - will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian. The waters of globalisation are rising around higher education - and the university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language," says the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone. Italy might have been the cradle of th...

Joseph Klein: Just when you would think that the far Left Obama booster organization MoveOn.org could not get any more ridiculous, it sinks to ever lower levels of absurdity.  The latest example involves MoveOn’s push to render the phrase “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” hate speech. A  video posted last week at MoveOn.org’s website  charges that calling illegal immigrants “illegal” fits the definition of a hate crime and calls for the word “illegal” to be abolished when describing individuals entering the United States illegally.  They would prefer using adjectives such as “undocumented” immigrants or “unauthorized” immigrants.  That is sort of like calling a bank robber an unauthorized withdrawer. How about working to eliminate incentives for the illegal behavior itself rather than focus on banning its correct characterization? “No human being is illegal,” intones MoveOn.org. True, but human beings can and do perform illegal acts.  ...

Image via Wikipedia Daniel Hannen: The Internet – much to the consternation of Euro-integrationists – is drawing the English-speaking peoples into a common conversation. And a good thing, too: it was always fatuous to pretend that geographical proximity was more important than history or sentiment, blood or speech. Where the EU is united by government decree, the Anglosphere is united by organic ties, by language and law, by shared habits of thought. Here, though, is a question, posed to mark the centenary of the Commonwealth. Is the common online dialogue also leading to a more direct harmonization of the English language? This blog, in a typical week, attracts 80,000 readers from the UK, 30,000 from the US and 10,000 from elsewhere, mainly from other Anglosphere nations: a proportion that is fairly representative of British websites. In consequence, British bloggers and readers are far more familiar with the American Weltanschauung. But are we also starting to write like America...

The BBC tells you probably more than you want to know about how "OK" came to be used around the world.

Image via Wikipedia NY Times: ANDREW RAMOS always believed it made him more charming, an endearing characteristic integral to his identity. But, finally, after too many people mocked him, he began seeing a therapist . Patrick Mullin had the same problem. “People were complaining,” he said. He started weekly therapy sessions 11 years ago and still goes about once a month. Lauren LoGiudice sought help for similar symptoms. “I would have sessions and I started to cry,” she said. In all three cases, therapists reached the same discomfiting conclusion. “I was diagnosed with a New York accent ,” Mr. Ramos said. The classic New York accent is not as distinct or as prevalent as it once was, but there are plenty of native “New Yawkers” who not only have it but consider it a curse. “It humbled me,” Mr. Ramos, a television reporter at WPIX-TV, said of his diagnosis. Those who seek professional help to conquer their accents make similar complaints, like, “ ‘People don’t understand ...

Mark Steyn: Readers sometimes express skepticism about my tales of Quebec's "language police" - the pet shop owner fined for having an English-speaking parrot, etc. So here, from the Montreal Gazette , and as a reminder of the forensic intrusions of the regulatory state, is the tale of the unilingual anglophone sex aid that fell afoul of the bureaucrats .... ... Read it all. It is too good to excerpt.

Ken Hoffman: Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola grew up in Argentina and began playing pro basketball at age 15. He moved to Spain at 18 and played nine years in the Spanish pro league. When he arrived in Houston three years ago, he already spoke excellent English. How did that happen? Friends helped him. “When I was in Spain, I became a big fan of the TV show Friends . I watched tapes over and over. I would get tapes that were a few years after they ran in America, but that's how I learned English,” Scola said. ... Getting by with a little help from his Friends? It is a good idea. It is another form of English immersion that speeds the learning process. Parents of kids who are not proficient in English should give it a try. It could save them a lot of grief in school.

Heather MacDonald: I n 1998, Californians voted to pass Proposition 227, the “English for the Children Act,” and dismantle the state’s bilingual-education industry. The results, according to California’s education establishment, were not supposed to look like this: button-cute Hispanic pupils at a Santa Ana elementary school boasting about their English skills to a visitor. Those same pupils cheerfully calling out to their principal on their way to lunch: “Hi, Miss Champion!” A statewide increase in English proficiency among all Hispanic students. Instead, warned legions of educrats, eliminating bilingual education in California would demoralize Hispanic students and widen the achievement gap. Unless Hispanic children were taught in Spanish, the bilingual advocates moaned, they would be unable to learn English or to succeed in other academic subjects. California’s electorate has been proved right: Hispanic test scores on a range of subjects have risen since Prop. 227 became law. Bu...

Christine Rossell: English is the language of opportunity in the United States and Texas. To ensure a bright future for all Texans, teaching English effectively and as quickly as possible to those who do not speak it must be of paramount importance to educators and policymakers. While Texas' non-English speaking population continues to steadily increase, Texas maintains an outdated and ineffective bilingual education policy that only three other states — New York, New Jersey, and Illinois —still have. Texas lawmakers need to examine whether the state's bilingual education programs can be more effective at teaching students English. The new research report I produced for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, “Does Bilingual Education Work? The Case of Texas,” examines this question and determines that current bilingual education programs are ineffective and should be replaced with sheltered English immersion. Bilingual education is instruction in all subjects in the student...

Independent: "Where are you from? Do you speak English?" It's a familiar phrase near the Forbidden City in Beijing, or along the capital's Nanjing Road, as Chinese people try a standard opening gambit to spark up a conversation with a foreigner. Many visitors baulk at being approached so baldly, and are worried that it could be a scam. Very occasionally it is a con – and tourists should be wary when some nice young people offer to bring them to a tea house – but mostly the youngsters are desperate for access to real live Anglophones who can help them improve their conversational English. Chinese people are becoming more and more obsessed with speaking English, and efforts to improve their proficiency mean that at some stage this year, the world's most populous nation will become the world's largest English-speaking country. Two billion people are learning English worldwide, and a huge proportion of them are in China. And sometimes it seems like most of the...