The 1973 Webster's Edition I was using [it's an old, falling-apart, surplused book that I kept as a souvenier as it was my Medical Department's dictionary aboard the USS Long Beach (CGN-9) back in my Navy days] inserted the Wouk quote as its illustrative example that referenced the "vulgar" audience.
Actually, I agree with most of your assertions. What I cannot accept is that we are becoming a bilingual society - english and spanish. This does not foster a healthy society. My job is much more difficult when I have to deal with hispanics. They cannot tell what is wrong with the machines they are using and I am expected to fix. My employer offered us spanish lessons instead of offering them english lessons. I will not learn spanish simply to accommodate the destruction of my country. You are a very good writer and intelligent, too. I was kind of playing with you. However, I don't see the bi-lingualization of America as a positive thing. My father came here from Poland in '47. He learned english as soon as possible. He said he knew it was the only way to get ahead. Staying with Polish would have kept him back and he knew it. Nowadays that's not true. We are accommodating hispanics in every facet of our society. Part of my resentment stems from the fact that we are only accommodating hispanics and not all the other immigrants from different places. Couple that with the fact that we are not only accommodating legal hispanics but millions of illegals as well at the same time. We are "facilitating" millions of illegal hispanics but no others. Why?
As a matter of fact, I agree with all of that.
I see no problem with America being a land of hundreds of languages. America has always been such a land if you count the Native American Indian languages.
However, there needs to be ONE AND ONLY ONE lingua franca (that's "common language" for the Latin-impaired) and English happens to be it.
It is great if an individual is bilingual or trilingual or quadriligual but, for a society to function well, everybody needs to try to learn the common language to the best of his ability so that every American can communicate well with every other American.
I do not believe in conducting official Government business in any language other than English.
I see nothing wrong with political parties explaining the arcane complexities of the Bush Social Security Plan vs. the Kerry Social Security Plan to your Polish-born grandmother in Polish or my Cuban-born grandmother in Spanish if that is what is required to get the concept of "Prefunding Future Consumption" across to them. However, if they are U.S. citizens, they have a responsibility to know how to read an English-language ballot and have no right to be whining that they need a Spanish-language ballot or a Polish-language ballot.
I do not believe in so-called "bilingual education" as practiced today. From personal experience, I know that the only way to learn a language well is through immersion.
As I said originally, my Cuban family had been bilingual since the 1800's. My grandfather was sent to study in the U.S. in 1907 and my father studied in the U.S. in the 1930's. Back in Cuba when I was 5, when the adults wanted to discuss adult matters, they spoke English and left me in the dark.
Their parents agreed with your father and they were forced to learn English in the U.S. even when our families still lived in Cuba. English = Commercial Success = $$$$.
However, once we came to the U.S. after Castro, the rule was that you spoke only Spanish at home and you spoke only English at school. Spanish immersion at home and English immersion. That is how my generation became truly bilingual.
In high school in Miami, I was enrolled in a Cuban Jesuit school that had been a famous school in Havana. (Castro went to high school there.) When Castro took over power, the Jesuit Fathers packed up, moved to Miami and set up the school there.
Although most students were Cuban refugees who spoke Spanish and almost all the Jesuit Fathers were fluent in Spanish, all regular courses were taught only in English and all Spanish course such as Spanish Literature and Grammar were taught only in Spanish.
When a new student, newly arrived from Cuba at age 15, was having a tough time with his English..........Too bad, so sad........He had to sink or swim in the English only classes.
When those of us whose Spanish reading speed was not up to snuff had problems with our Spanish literature assignments..........Too bad, so sad........We had to sink or swim with our assigned Spanish books.
That is how two language are taught simultaneously. Sink or swim. Sink or swim with the ethnic language at home. Sink or swim with English outside the home.
Our 31 student graduating class produced 5 M.D.'s, several lawyers, one Judge, one Ph.D., one architect that designed a Miami skyscraper, my financial adviser, many successful businessmen and the class behind us produced the current Mayor of Miami.
In contrast, the current public school "bilingual education" ensures that these Spanish speaking kids will never master English and will be linguistically handicapped for the rest of their lives.
These "Englished-challenged" individuals are condemning themselves to mowing other people's lawns and cleaning other people's toilets.
In regards to businesses, any business that does not strive for English fluency is cutting its own throat in the market place.
If the employees cannot explain to the English-speaking Support Services what the F is wrong with the equipment that's on the blink, your company is dead in the water and the business is bleeding red ink.
Your boss needs to get a clue and realize that.
In regards to illegal immigration, I think the current situation is a disgrace and is giving all the legal immigrants a bad name.
My grandfather ended up as a political prisoner in Cuba in the early 1960's so my mother was denied exit from Cuba until after he died in 1980. The way the diplomatic mess worked at the time, Cubans had to leave Cuba to apply for U.S. visas in a third country but those countries would not give visas unless you had a U.S. visa first.
While I was in the Navy, I asked a Mexican Consulate in California if my mother and sister could get a Mexican visa. After three days, the reply came back that, if I bribed a certain lawyer, he could obtain an under-the-table Mexican visa.
I refused. If the Mexican visa was not 100% legal, I wanted no part of it.
So, if I was not willing to violate Mexican law for the sake of my own mother and sister, I have ZERO sympathy for Mexicans who want to violate U.S. law and those who make excuses for them.
In regards to Poland, my wife's maternal Polish ancestors were surnamed Glomb, Romanowski, Homiak, Pociecha and Soltys and then there was that fellow that changed his Polish surname to an English surname. (I never did understand such a way of thinking. "Eisenhower" and "Roosevelt" and "Van Buren" are just as American as "Wilson" and "Hoover" and "Carter".)
Maybe we are distant in-laws. :-)
What kind of doctor are you? You seem to have plenty of time to beat me over the head with facts but I wonder where you get the time.
In regards to Poland, my wife's maternal Polish ancestors were surnamed Glomb, Romanowski, Homiak, Pociecha and Soltys and then there was that fellow that changed his Polish surname to an English surname. (I never did understand such a way of thinking. "Eisenhower" and "Roosevelt" and "Van Buren" are just as American as "Wilson" and "Hoover" and "Carter".) Maybe we are distant in-laws. :-)
Anything is possible. My family all came to the Chicago area.