English sans French
From the Christian Science Monitor:
The Franco-American
disputefalling out over the bestapproachway todisarming Iraqtake away Iraq's weapons has resulted in perhaps the highestlevel ofanti-French feeling in the UnitedStatesLands since 1763.A French-owned
hotelinnkeeping firm, Accor, has taken down thetricolorthree-hued flag. In the House ofRepresentativesBurghers, thechairmanleader of theCommitteeBody onAdministrationRunning Things has renamed named anew French fries "freedom fries" and French toast "freedom toast" in Houserestaurantseating rooms.To which the
questionasking arises: Why stop with Evian, Total gasoline, and the Concorde (justonly the Air France flights)? Let's get to the heart of thematterthing: Ahugebig percentage of the words inmoderntoday's English are of - gasp! - Frenchoriginbeginnings. What if, as a result of thecurrent diplomatic disputetoday's falling out between lands, the Frenchdemandask for their words back? We could all be linguistichostagescaptives.It is time for English-speaking
peoplesfolk to throw off this culturalimperialismlording-it-over-others anddeclaresay our linguistic freedom. It is time topurifyclean the Englishlanguagetongue. It will take somesacrificeshardship on everyone's part to get used to the newparlancespeech. But think of thesatisfactionwarm feeling inside on the day we are allable tocan all stare the Académie Française in the eye and say without fear ofreprisalinjury: "Sumer is icumen in...."
Just think how hard this would be to do with Arabic.
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