Post a controversial opinion

k

i thought you were saying americans saying they were irish eg were like scottish settlers in ireland calling themselves ulster scots after living there for 400 years

Don't make me post the Ulster American Heritage Park again

here's another controp : English should be made the official language of the USA

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, 12 December 2017 19:34 (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Manifested how, though? It’s less controversial in the abstract than it is when you start barring people from migration or citizenship because they can’t speak the language well enough, stop providing translation services for social services, etc - which is what a lot of countries with official languages do.

again, people of Italian descent, Polish descent, even if they're 3 or 4 generations removed from the homeland, they identify as (x)-American. common thread there is they lived in ethnic enclaves in USA well into the 20th century

unless your ancestors were Native American, "American" is an abstraction, a mindset, a set of ideals/beliefs/behaviors rather than obvious genetic traits like freckles or skin tone. for better & worse.

i thought you were saying americans saying they were irish eg were like scottish settlers in ireland calling themselves ulster scots after living there for 400 years

Thankfully most Americans are not that perverse.

I like thinking about about some family tradition of like, say, making sauerkraut, only to find out the grandmother who was into doing that wasn't echoing ancestry, it was just a thing that was really popular in home magazines of the 1950s in the midwest

Anecdotal of course but my mother-in-law is 2nd gen Polish-American, does not identify as such. She'll make pierogis and kielbasa etc but that's as far as it goes.

ya i eat potatoes and sauerkraut and ill entertain my irish-american family's celebration of st patricks day but other than that i was raised on burgers, poutine and dairy queen

(theres more but that rhymes so well)

flows*

Sun Ra had the right idea by declaring himself to be originally from outer space.

Tbf could be due to anti-Polish stigma in that era and her parents' surname was anglicised

Manifested how, though? It’s less controversial in the abstract than it is when you start barring people from migration or citizenship because they can’t speak the language well enough, stop providing translation services for social services, etc - which is what a lot of countries with official languages do.

well it's a controp! but yes I was supposing all of those controversies. I think linguistic diversity at a national level solidifies political imbalances: some languages will be minority tongues and their speakers will be at a political disadvantage at a national level. An official tongue can push minority communities toward being to express their power at a national level, rather than being relegated to merely local power (at best).

I'm not really clear on what would change if English were to be an official language in the US. Does anything official happen at the federal level in languages other than English atm (as opposed to taking place in English and then being translated)? Pretty sure we translate things into non-official languages when there is enough of a demand for it in Canada.

I don't even think it's necessarily a bad idea, to be clear. I'm just not clear on whether there's any sense in which English is not already a de facto official language.

2nd gen Polish-American

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, December 12, 2017

So just American.

Superficially celebrating a culture you know next to nothing about and whose language you don't speak doesn't warrant a hyphen, imho. 'American of partly Polish descent' rings truer.

we've linked the ability to claim ethnicity directly to how many times strangers ask "so where are you _from_?" and it's gross

Gross is a bad word when Americans use it

They should use other words than gross

how do u feel about "creepy"

Same

Certainly is de facto. But making it de jure would give ammunition to those who want English ONLY for official documents. Which would be a great way to make life harder for English learners - many of whom are poor and already struggling to get government services, navigate bureaucracies, register to vote, get ID, etc.

Regardless of the merits of the idea I don't much like handing yet more culture-war ammunition to racists.

(er that was to Sund4r)

Xps And esp prone to gendering in a way that's get this gross

I got carol ann duffy where are you from originally'd by an unspeakably posh woman at the bar at Cambridge film festival, it was fucking ridiculous. Could only happen here.

I answered her a few different ways - I'm from Cambridge, I grew up here, I'm British (I have a Cambridge accent also obv) - and she was having none of it, she was like "but you're not of English origin, are you?" When I said "oh, well I'm half-Mexican" she joyously cried "oh!" and literally applauded

Not only could it only happen here, I think these fucks only come out of the woodwork during film festival

Dross

wait whats so gross abt americans saying gross

My neighbours growing up had the surname Gross and all the local kids were discouraged by adults from using the word to describe disgusting things.

2nd gen Polish-American

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, December 12, 2017

So just American.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 December 2017 20:50 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Um, yeah, did you actually read my post or the posts I was responding to?

hey, if you say something confidently enough it's gotta be objectively true

kool aid manning is a favourite ilxor pastime

He said with an easy finality xp

u gonna answer the q or wut

Not tonight. But everyone knows anyway.

too lazy to listen for the diff

so sleepy zzz

kool aid manning to ILNFL

The US Postal Service rules

neither rain nor snow, my friend

Having just shipped a priority mail box to some colleagues down under for about 1/4 the price of FedEx or UPS, yes, the USPS still owns

iatee is going to be pissed

the USPS is not currently serving some areas of southern california due to the fire. i guess fire is not part of the creed, though.

Gross is a bad word when Americans use it

However shall we describe our income before deductions?

Or a dozen dozen?

but the big fire extinguisher order! xxpost

"I'm not really clear on what would change if English were to be an official language in the US."

"Thirty-one states have adopted English as their official language, most (27 of these 31) since the 1980s. This tally includes both “blue” and “red” states, and stretches from coast to coast."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/18/when-and-why-do-u-s-states-make-english-their-official-language/?utm_term=.19f3ecde666e

Cheering someone's suicide is nagl

depends on the someone

hitler just needed the right mental health treatment amirite

suicide isn't a homogeneous set of acts