[Slade]

Spoon: You never heard of Ms. Woolfe? I've heard of her, but never read her. She's on my "Mark Twain Classics" list. That is, books I want to have read but never want to read.

Simewise: You are surely thinking of Esperanto. Saluton! Seriously, the Esperanto people were trying to work on a universal language that borrowed elements from most other languages, or at least their roots, and they also removed irregular verbs, in the hopes of making the language more accessible to everyone everywhere. It's pretty cool, but not enough people take it seriously, so it may never happen.

[Spoon Poetic]

Of course it won't. If there's ever going to be one world language, it will be English, because in order to make it big or even medium-sized in this world, you almost always need to go ahead and know it anyway. Half the world knows English already. I don't like the idea but I know that it's the reality of the thing.

And I guess I have heard the name Virginia Woolfe but pretty much just in passing. Haven't read anything by her. *feels stoopid*

And I recommend "What is Man" by Mark Twain if you haven't already read it.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 10 October 2007 - 09:11 PM

[J m HofMarN]

Yes, they freely admit they were influenced by jazz, because jazz was something they liked and they wanted to be associated with it.

And that means they werent influenced by Jazz?

It sounds to me like you were reacting to this, the THIRD paragraph:

I read to the parts where some creature named Scrope Pervis appeared. because I remember the name. I also recall that someone, possibly Scrope Pervis saw the queen maybe. Where that is, I don't know. Mrs. Dalloway is, in the words of Ginsberg, "An Endless Book that will drive everyone mad"

You're reacting like it wa Finnigan's Wake.

No I'm reacting like it WAS Finnegans Wake.

Dalloway is NOT easier to understand than Howl.

The tone, the words, the form and the emotion in the poetry are nigh indestructible and easy to grasp. Howl has a fairly consistant emotional tone, at least until you get into the foot notes.

[J m HofMarN]

Spoon - Are you refering to Ginsberg or Woolfe?

[Spoon Poetic]

I didn't know what Mrs. Dalloway was and I didn't recognize the paragraph Civ posted, and then Slade asked if I'd seriously not heard of Ms. Woolfe and I said I'd heard of her but that's all, and by that I mean I haven't read whatever it is you guys are talking about, nor anything else by her unless it was something in high school and I just really don't remember.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 10 October 2007 - 09:14 PM

[Despondent]

"I like to be in America!
Okay by me in America!
Everything free in America
For a small fee in America"

That is So politically incorrect.

If Stephen Sondheim had an ounce of understanding in him, he'd have written these lines in Spanish. After all, the West Side Story characters who sang these lines would certainly not have been expected to sing in English, let alone Know the language.

I just felt the need to come in and post again, for even's sake. Just a couple of points.
First to respond wins the debate.

It's better for all who live here in this country, to have a strong United States of America, a nation knit in a National fabric. And given our polarizing political structure, that's not likely to happen without something we can all call our own.

I like to call it; a National language.

A single language opens up all of the dialogue between us. What if some folks came on these Forums and couldn't speak English? They wouldn't have much of a voice, would they? Many of you speak another language primarily, and for you in your country that's a wonderful right. But if you didn't speak in English, myself and an overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens wouldn't have the ability to hear your point of view. And it's not just about making things easier on stupid, monolingual Americans. You've taken the effort to communicate, because learning English is vital to what you hold dear.

And many have gone farther than that, risking all to come to the shores of my country.

I found this:

The Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus saw the statue as a beacon to the world. A poem she wrote to help raise money for the pedestal, and which is carved on that pedestal, captured what the statue came to mean to the millions who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and who have continued to come unto this day.

–The U.S. Department of State

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


It's a nice ode, and she gets a U.S. Department of State nod, but it's Hardly the National Poem.

Many who came here Actually were striving to be free. Can you imagine the oppression people faced before the Berlin wall fell? (Well, everywhere but Cuba, understandably). Our forefathers fought and died for this country in battle, giving their lives for the right to live here as a citizen of the U.S.A.

If you're Already free and want to come here Only for the bounty of our country, with no regard for Our rights or privileges, at least learn our common tongue.

(I suppose here we could discuss how the illegals Have risked Everything in coming to this country, by being stuffed into a tractor-trailer or by having to climb over a fence).


I'll admit it. Making English our National Language is going to be about as effective as choosing the Bald Eagle as our National Bird.

Regardless, I don't care what the Mexican word for Eagle is.

[Jordan]

Regardless, I don't care what the Mexican word for Eagle is.

El birdo

[Cobnat]

First of all, white culture is shit. Capitalism, genocide, slavery, sitcoms, this is your fucking white history my friend. There's no culture to preserve, and most Americans are barely literate in their own native language, so making English the official language is going to screw over a bunch of native born citizens when it turns out they can't write it. It's also giving people an excuse not to learn other languages. You can take any immigrant from Mexico and compare them to any college student and it's a fair bet that they'll know more English than that college student will know of Spanish or any other language.

Immigrants do us a service by bringing in their own culture and enriching the country with it. If people in the US hadnt been exposed to Italian, Mediterranean and Asian foods by our immigrants, the rate of heart attacks would be at least twice as high. And let's face it, the stigma Latinos are facing is no different than the attacks heaped on other immigrants throughout history. But the US always came out the better for it no matter how much the conservatives grumbled.

I think you are confused (like most white Americans) about what ‘white culture’ is exactly. I mean, western European culture is dramatically different from southern European, eastern European, Australasian and American cultures. In theory white culture is meant to the romanticization of what the Greeks and Romans had but in reality white culture is made up of hundreds of smaller sectarian cultures. Culture has nothing to do with genocide or slavery, that has been done by all cultures regardless, so it is a human phenomenon.

Though what you are probably thinking of is American/Western European culture (which is somewhat alike), not ‘white culture’.