howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
A cross party group of Mp's and peers have reached the conclusion that things would run better if we all spoke the same language. They done this before about 15 years ago and still Government forms are printed in loads of languages and GP surgeries, courts and many other premises have interpreters sitting there earning a decent few bob off of the taxpayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38510628Bob Whysman and Jan Higgins like this
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,061
Mae'n ddrwg gennym, doeddwn i ddim yn deall hynny!
(Not my real name.)
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
I am sure this conclusion would have been reached many, many years ago by the public when non english speaking foreigners arrived in this country.
Printing so many forms in various languages took away the incentive to learn our language and integrate with the rest of us, how can you chat to your neighbour if you do not understand them.
Bob Whysman, Guest 744 and howard mcsweeney1 like this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Button wrote:Mae'n ddrwg gennym, doeddwn i ddim yn deall hynny!
That's easy for you to say.
Button likes this
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,061
No, but it makes for a high Scrabble score!
(Not my real name.)
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
can you translate button.
Guest 1849- Registered: 12 Sep 2016
- Posts: 440
Button wrote:Mae'n ddrwg gennym, doeddwn i ddim yn deall hynny!
I must confess when I first saw this I assumed it was one of Brian's posts
Paul M and Guest 744 like this
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,061
It means "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that!" (in Welsh).
Brian Dixon likes this
(Not my real name.)
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,131
Like it or not (and I like it!) there are fewer and fewer reasons for anyone to learn any language other than English, the language of science, commerce, global politics, aviation, popular music and, above all, the internet.
Certainly I can't see the reason all are forced to do a MFL at secondary school when many do not have the interest/inclination/aptitude. (Though one of my Christmas guests, who read Greats at Oxford speaks perfect Russian and Pashtun which is useful in his rather unusual occupation
)
Ironically it's even become the default tongue of the EU; the language that President Hollande of France uses with Chancellor Merkel of Germany when plotting how to stitch up the British!
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Bob Whysman
- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,938
Brian Dixon wrote:can you translate button.
Easy.......botwm
Do nothing and nothing happens.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
david speak English you please
Paul M likes this
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,061
But if we all spoke English (shades of Babel-fish), we'd know what each other was saying - this is how wars start! Seriously, whilst non-English speakers and EALs are an issue, worse still in my opinion is the notion that one's internal plumbing is somehow relevant to the respect due. It's not. A WPC, for example, is a copper and coppers are coppers - that's why they wear a uniform for pity's sake, to denote they give a uniform service and should be regarded uniformly. OK, rant over.
Curiously, language means that bananas are frequently recorded as coming from Iceland (country code IC), whereas Ivory Coast where they really come from is code CI (Kermitese for Cote d'Ivoire).
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
(Not my real name.)
Guest 1467- Registered: 30 Jan 2015
- Posts: 149
One thing I find odd these days, is why our some of younger generation seem to speak Jamaican! Is it a fashion?
howard mcsweeney1 likes this