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St Ralph Sherwin, from an eighteenth-century portrait in the College.The College has been known as the "Venerable English College" since 1818 because of the 44 students who were martyred for the Catholic faith between 1581 and 1679, as well as the 130 who suffered imprisonment and exile. 41 of these have since been canonised or beatified by the Church. The College's "Protomartyr" was St Ralph Sherwin. He was born in Roddesley, Derbyshire, around 1550 and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, before leaving for Douai and then Rome. His name stands first in the famous Liber ruber (a list of...

Some people collect sports memorabilia, or rare coins, or sea shells from the beach at Ocean City. Wilson Watson collects sentences. He taught local community college students for 35 years and has now slipped gently into retirement. But his students’ sentences trail behind him like ship’s anchors, evidence of the sinking of American writing skills. Or, as one of Watson’s scholars wrote so succinctly: “Some people use bad language and is not even aware of the fact.” Or, another: “It’s good I’m doing something with my self; Therefore, I can do better in the foochure.” Or, “People who murder a...

JERICHO, N.Y. — For school officials here, the numbers did not add up. Even as enrollment swelled to 3,200, from 2,600 a decade ago, attendance at Parent-Teacher Association meetings shriveled by half. Even as more students got accepted to Ivy League schools, turnout for the guidance department’s information nights was so anemic that counselors cajoled students to come — and bring along their parents. Then teachers and administrators noticed something else: Jericho High School’s 90-member orchestra had become 70 percent Asian-American (the student body over all is about 30 percent Asian-American), but it still played for a mostly white audience...

Ingrid Ocampo said her autistic son waited a year for services from the Philadelphia School District because she does not speak English and couldn't understand the district's forms and policies. Irma Zamora, another public school parent, expressed concern about signing permission slips printed in a language she can't read. ---snip--- "We want to know how our kids are doing in math, how they're doing in social sciences. We want to know how the school is organized," said Zamora, addressing district officials through a translator. "We want you to know that we are the same quality whether we speak English or...

Is anyone else being bedeviled with Google appearing in Spanish or Chinese? Yesterday, it was so bad that the best I could do with it was to get it to appear in "Elmer Fudd" ("are you feewing wucky"). I have two screen shots for of the mess, but no place to serve them from. I use Firefox as my browser. I have checked, it is set to U.S. English.

They are well-worn phrases, repeated ad nauseam throughout the English language. But local councils have now waged war on Latin words, banning staff from using them in writing or in speech. The authorities claim the terms are elitist and discriminatory and have ordered employees to use wordier alternatives in documents or when speaking to members of the public. However the ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world's richest language and is the 'linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing'. Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas - beauty and health - has listed 19...

The English commmon law system began with William the Conqueror's Norman invasion of England in 1066. During that period, England was a fractionalized island since various invaders had established settlements, including the Angles, Saxons, Celts and even the Vikings. Naturally, these distinctive peoples spoke different languages and settled legal disputes based on their own local customs. William the Conqueror's goal was to create one uniform or common language and one common law for all of England.

If you want to flame me, you can do so rightfully, as I am posting this from the viewpoint of a casual observer rather than an a knowledgeable linguist. But here I go: The easiest items to adjust for are nouns. You just plug in a noun in one language for another. Perhaps there are are languages with "easier" nouns than English but I don't know why or how. However, this is not the problem. The Romance languages have two difficulties. How to use the personal or impersonal "you" term. (In English it's left generic) It varies widely between cultures...

Thus, learning English in China is no longer just important. It is the bare minimum for any serious student. Not learning English here would be tantamount to not studying math or science.Beyond that, Chinese students who want to use their English to further their career will have to do more than just become familiar with the language. They will have to become fluent in it because there is now simply too much competition. English speakers are a 'dime a dozen' in China and companies, especially foreign ones, can now be much pickier when they hire their English speaking staff members.

After decades of immigration from Asia and Latin America, Silicon Valley has hit a linguistic milestone that is rare in America: For the first time, a majority of Santa Clara County residents speak a language other than English at home. In 2007, Santa Clara was one of just 10 counties in the United States where more than 50 percent of residents speak a foreign language at home, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released Monday. Most of those counties are home to Spanish speakers on the Mexican border or multilingual populations in large cities like New York, Los Angeles...

San Francisco resident Carlos Dimaano, 50, a recent immigrant from the Philippines, speaks English in his job at a community center. But when he goes home to cook dinner for his 88-year-old father, the two lapse into their native Tagalog. The men are among the almost 43 percent of Californians who speak a language other than English at home, a proportion far higher than in any other state in the country, according to census figures released today. Speaking another language at home doesn't mean they don't also speak English in the home. But Dimaano, who immigrated just a year ago,...

Macy's Inc. says it's investigating a complaint that Somali employees at its Southdale store in Edina received a letter prohibiting the speaking of Somali at work. The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it was contacted by six Somali-speaking employees of the Southdale Macy's who say they were warned that speaking Somali at work could warrant losing their jobs. According to CAIR-MN, the Macy's East document reads: "It is Macy East's policy that a common language is spoken during work -- therefore, effective immediately all associates must speak English while working -- It is a job...

What an amazing ad from UK bakery Hovis. A little boy taking a loaf home goes through 120 years of British history, the bakery is celebrating its 120 anniversary. What a great scene of the Tommies marching off to Flanders and a Spitfire.

Last month's ceasefire agreement centred around the creation of "buffer zones" between Russia and the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which are now effectively controlled by the Kremlin. The agreement was brokered by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president whose country currently holds the EU presidency. But the original diplomatic coup became an embarrassing failure as Russia failed to move its troops off the main body of Georgia. Bernard Kouchner told a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the weekend that the ceasefire agreement was written in French before being translated into English and then Russian. Asked what...

What's good for golf, should be good for U.S. The LPGA Tour has announced that beginning in 2009 all tour players must speak English. Veteran players will have two years to pass an oral exam but new players must pass the oral exam to join the tour. There are currently 121 international players from 26 countries on the LPGA Tour. Tour players who can't pass the oral exam will be suspended. Fortunately for the LPGA, it is a private organization and can set its own rules. The new English-language requirement makes perfect sense for an enterprise like professional golf that...

PORTLAND, Oregon (AFP) — The LPGA Tour is going to force its burgeoning South Korean contingent of players to learn to speak English or risk losing their playing privileges.Starting next year, the Tour announced that players who have been on the tour for two years must pass a oral English test or face suspension.

The same article as the "GOP takes a hard line on abortion..." The committee passed a plank calling for English to become the nation's official language, but not without some sparks. Sue Everheart of Georgia said she feared the position would cost Republicans the support of immigrants. "I want every Republican vote out there," Everheart said.

The world's best female golf players will no longer be required just to be able to drive and chip, but also to speak English, according to a report. Golfweek reported on its website that the LPGA informed players last week that those on the tour at least two years will have to pass an oral evaluation of their ability to speak English. Those who fail would have their memberships suspended, though LPGA deputy commissioner Libba Galloway told Golfweek that players would be helped out in such a scenario. “Hopefully what we’re talking about is something that will not happen,” said...

GHOTI and tchoghs may not immediately strike readers as staples of the British diet; and even those most enamoured of written English’s idiosyncrasies may wince at this tendentious rendering of “fish and chips”. Yet the spelling, easily derived from other words*, highlights the shortcomings of English orthography. This has long bamboozled foreigners and natives alike, and may underlie the national test results released on August 12th which revealed that almost a third of English 14-year-olds cannot read properly. One solution, suggested recently by Ken Smith of the Buckinghamshire New University, is to accept the most common misspellings as variants rather...

A federal judge ruled Friday that a Wichita Catholic school policy requiring students to speak only English didn't break any civil rights laws.

The Olympics can be a time of learning about the countries of the world – especially some of the more obscure nations. But, if you're tuned into coverage of the Summer Games in Beijing, you might be surprised by what you learnUnited States of America. For instance, what’s the official language of the U.S.? If your guess is English, you would be wrong. English is the official language of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon (along with French), Canada, of course (along with French), the Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji (along with Fijian), Gambia, Ghana, Grenada,...

Why do we capitalize the word “I”? There’s no grammatical reason for doing so, and oddly enough, the majuscule “I” appears only in English. Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of “you” and even, occasionally, the informal form of “you,” but would never capitalize “I.” Yet in English, the solitary “I” towers above “he,” “she,” “it” and the royal “we.” Even a gathering...

Go to the FedEx.com homepage, and select the country drop down list. Notice the first two countries. 1. U.S.A. 2. U.S.A. - Espanol FedEx, when it absolutely has to sell your country down the river.

School Budget Cuts Derail English Language Program By Dean Gray and Jackie Devereaux Coachella Valley, CA – An important English reading fluency program is threatened to end due to severe budget cuts to this year’s school budget. The Valley Partnership, is at the end of a three-year program, funded by an annual grant of $329,000. Without the matching funds the program is at risk and over 20 people lose their paid volunteer positions. Fundraising efforts are still trying to raise $55,000 by August 3rd to meet the target start-up date. The sponsors are asking for donations by philanthropists and charitable...

TEA has until the end of January to change program for secondary schools.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Manuel Castillo was driving a truck through Alabama hauling onions and left with a $500 ticket for something he didn't think he was doing: speaking English poorly. Castillo, who was stopped on his way back to California, said he knows federal law requires him to be able to converse in English with an officer but he thought his language skills were good enough to avoid a ticket. Still, Castillo said he plans to pay the maximum fine of $500 rather than return to Alabama to fight the ticket. "It just doesn't seem fair to be ticketed if...

For decades, the proud seal of New York City, with its depiction of a sailor and a Manhattan Indian, of beavers and flour barrels and the sails of a windmill, has celebrated 1625 as the year the city was founded. There’s just one problem: Most historians say the year has hardly any historical significance. The first settlers arrived in what would become part of New York City on a Dutch ship as early as 1623; some say 1624. The Dutch “purchased” Manhattan in 1626. The first charter was granted in 1653. And the most notable event of 1625? Dutch settlers...

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Legal Newsline) -An attorney best known for his role in the impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton has been hired by the Arizona state Legislature to defend its position that it spends enough money to teach English learner students. Attorney Ken Starr could represent state lawmakers before the U.S. Supreme Court to try to convince the high court that lower courts erred in ruling that provisions of a 2006 law aimed at complying with federal education laws are illegal.

Barack Obama has questioned, implicitly, the value of English as a primary language. Why shouldn't the rest of us learn to speak Spanish? What is so "special" about English? Pandering to Hispanic voters is at the heart of this latest swerve in Obama's insubstantial campaign, but picking on English is a very silly and very dangerous tactic towards a vital national and international issue. Obama himself is the best argument for a black in America learning to master English. The candidate speaks English perfectly and that has made him the first viable black presidential candidate. If he spoke English like...

Hold your (native) tongue! English embarrasses Obama By Michael Graham Thursday, July 10, 2008 Michael Graham hosts a talk show on 96.9 WTKK. Embarrassed again. First it was Michelle Obama, who had never been proud of American democracy until her husband’s electoral success. Now Sen. Barack Obama says his fellow Americans are “embarrassing” him. Why? Because we don’t speak enough French. “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, ‘merci beaucoup,’ ” Obama told supporters on Tuesday. Just...

Embarrassed again. First it was Michelle Obama, who had never been proud of American democracy until her husband’s electoral success. Now Sen. Barack Obama says his fellow Americans are “embarrassing” him. Why? Because we don’t speak enough French. “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say is, ‘merci beaucoup,’ ” Obama told supporters on Tuesday. Just “merci beaucoup”? C’est dommage! (“That’s too bad!” for those readers not currently serving as Massachusetts’ junior senator). And why is it a big...

English First Executive Director Jim Boulet, Jr., today called upon Senator Barack Obama to reconsider his anti-English statements. Senator Obama has voted against official English four times in 2006 and 2007 and earned an "F" rating for English First in 2006. "Senator Obama, there are plenty of languages spoken in America. What makes Spanish so special, instead of, say, Chinese or Arabic," said Jim Boulet, Jr., Executive Director of English First. "What next, Senator? Will you be saying that too many Americans are bitterly clinging to our English language? Why does it seem you are always looking down your nose...

Video. He says he is "embarrassed" at Americans who can't speak foreign languages, but he's got no problem with foreigners who can't speak ours. All American boy, that guy.

London: The English language is set to reach a very important landmark within the next year – its one millionth word. A new English word is created every 98 minutes, and the current number of official words stands at 995,844. With the way things are going, experts believe that the language will cross its one millionth word mark within the year, more specifically 29 April, 2009. More news, analysis | More Science and Medicine news "English is different to most other languages in that it absorbs words like no other language in history. Language boils up from the people and...

When hang means, as it generally does, "to suspend," then hung is the correct past-tense and past participial form of the verb: "Yesterday, I hung a picture on the wall"; "I have hung many pictures on many walls." When hang means "to put to death by hanging," however, hanged is the correct past-tense and past participial form: "We hanged the horse-thieving varmint yesterday"; "We've hanged nigh unto forty horse thieves this year." Given that hanging has become a fairly infrequent means to a fairly infrequent end, you might think that this is an unimportant distinction. But, because of a colloquial...

Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a $10 million budget that includes a plan for a school where only Spanish is spoken. Superintendent Peter Gorman pitched his proposal to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board today, with provisions to turn Collinswood Elementary into a Spanish program. Nora Carr, chief communications officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, told WND the facility will help to preserve Hispanic culture. We find that a lot of kids who go there have parents who might be English-speaking immigrants, and they might be very successful," she said. "They...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJfS1v-fU0

Melissa Green's mother spoke Spanish, but she never learned - her father forbid it. Today, that's a frequent problem in this city where the English-speaking population is outnumbered. The 49-year-old flower shop owner and Miami native said her inability to speak "espanol" makes it difficult to conduct business, seek help at stores and even ask directions. She finds it "frustrating." "It makes it hard for some people to find a job because they don't speak Spanish, and I don't think that it is right," said Green, who sometimes calls a Spanish-speaking friend to translate for customers who don't speak English....

Can anyone help translate some of this Old english? It is from a transcription on a tomb my wife did a rubbing of for a friend who is tracing his ancestry.Man here thov mayste yntombed see a man of honest fame come home to earthe who in life bare Willm Cantrell name a gentleman in birth in life in ofice and degre now wrapte in clay then thincke oh man what shall becom of the this Willm Cantrell feofee was with others put in trvste regarded well for vertvovs life wise sorertrev and lvste even of the whole revennes of...

(Wichita) Four Hispanic families are suing St. Anne's Catholic School over a policy that requires students to speak English at all times while at school. The lawsuit, filed Monday, calls for an end to this policy and asks for an order barring similar policies at other diocese schools. And it asks for court costs and unspecified damages for diiscrimination and emotional suffering. The lawsuit was filed by Mike and Clara Silva, Maria and Fermin Fernandez, Guadalupe Cruz-Tello and Alma Contreras on behalf of themselves and their minor children. The diocese said the school enacted the policy in response to four...

WICHITA, Kan. — Four Hispanic families are suing St. Anne's Catholic School over a policy that requires students to speak English at all times while at school. The lawsuit, filed Monday, calls for an end to the policy and asks for an order barring similar policies at other diocese schools. It seeks the return of one student to the school who was allegedly kicked out for refusing to sign the "English only" pledge. And it asks for court costs and unspecified damages for discrimination and emotional suffering.

  We all know John McCain is terrible on immigration. For years he held America’s sovereignty and security hostage to amnesty and increased immigration, and his newfound support for “enforcement first” is so insubstantial and transparently insincere that it insults our intelligence. He’s so bad that Americans for Better Immigration ranks his performance in office as the worst of all the presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. (See the GOP grid here and the Democratic one here.) And as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, passage of McCain’s bill “would represent the largest expansion...

HILLAH — An English Day program at the regional embassy office in al-Hillah gave 25 students and 15 staff and faculty members from Babil province a chance to hone their English skills on April 19. Five students from five different schools, two English teachers from those schools, the director general for education and other representatives from the department of education took advantage of the interaction with the Babil provincial reconstruction team and the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion. “I think it was as positive of an interaction for us on our side as it is for them,” said Kim Sonn, public...

Excerpt - If the EU wishes to become a superstate then, of course, the nation state — its natural enemy — has to go. In its place comes a vast phalanx of somewhat ill-defined racial types, clamouring for recognition — from Catalonia, the Basque region, Flanders and the two Galicias, from Transylvania, from Friesland, Brittany, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, ad infinitum. And lastly, not quite sure why they are there at all, or how they might be defined, that quietly clamouring horde from England. The English. Do you have a St George’s flag to hand? They have become most fecund...

Democratic voters in northwestern Pennsylvania will participate Tuesday in something they haven’t seen in many years: a competitive party primary election for the U.S. House. Democratic strategists hope this will lead to something they have sought without success for years, namely a serious general election challenge to veteran Republican Rep. Phil English in the marginally Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District. When 3rd District Democrats go to the polls to pick between Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in the state’s competitive presidential primary, they also will choose among four Democrats who are vying to oppose...

In recent years, the conservative media clout within the United States has risen markedly, at least in the English language. Fox News Channel (FNC) and radio talk show hosts dominate cable news and AM radio, and capable right-of-center bloggers stand on guard to debunk the latest spin dished out by the much-derided “mainstream media”. However, there is a vacuum when it comes to Spanish language conservative media. The Hispanic market is predominantly ruled by a liberal agenda and sometimes an anti-American one. With a Hispanic population in the United States close to 40 million people, there is an urgent need...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A measure calling for a vote of the people on a proposed constitutional amendment to declare English the state's "official language" won approval Wednesday in a House committee after a tense hearing. The measure was added to a bill that is now headed for the House floor. Rep. Randy Terrill, who is seeking the legislation, said it would end driver's license tests in Spanish. In addition, state agencies would provide telephone services only in English, he said. "Everyone knows translators and translation services cost money," Terrill said. Terrill, R-Moore, told the House General Government and Transportation Committee...

Pa. judge sentences 3 men to learn English or go to jail The Associated Press WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - An eastern Pennsylvania judge known for creative sentencing has ordered three men to learn English or go to jail. Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. said the men, who faced prison for criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, can remain on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn their GEDs and get full-time jobs. Olszewski noted that the three men, Luis Reyes, Ricardo Dominguez and Rafael Guzman-Mateo, plus a fourth defendant, Kelvin Reyes-Rosario, all needed translators in court when...

http://www.ktrh.com/main.html PLEASE FREEP THIS POLL! Question of the Day Should companies be allowed to require their workers to speak English-only? Yes so far 27.78 % No so far 72.22 %

Loose cigars are safe, cloned meat doesn't have to be labeled and English won't become Maryland's official language. Bills dealing with those issues are among the dozens that state lawmakers in Annapolis have rejected. When House members returned for a rare Saturday session, they found a long list of proposed bills that were rejected by committees, or in some cases, withdrawn by their sponsors. The losing bills include a formal recognition of English as the state's official language and a bill to ban the sale of cigars in packages of less than five.