Elkridge Hollerer news favorite Hugo Chávez recently launched a new campaign against US "imperialism", this time in the form of English-language words at the state phone company.
I'm glad to see Chávez taking up the anti-English theme, which is a perennial favorite of mine. After all, how many times can we really hear the French exhort against le weekend or l'e-mail? But I am a little concerned that Chávez himself might be affected by this push. Will he have to change the name of his call-in TV show, "Aló Presidente"? Will he still be able to rail against yanquis?
I think I get a chuckle out of this issue because as an English-speaker, I have the moral high ground. 1066 and the subsequent couple of centuries: That was linguistic imperialism.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Them's fightin' words
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the belgians, who don't have the problem the french do with foreign loan words, still say le mail for email, sometimes spelled mél. this led to a funny conversation with a billing clerk at the auto glass shop the other day when i called for a colleague (the name of the firm is car glass; see what i mean about loan words). we had this exchange about how they couldn't send the invoice by mail, but only by mail. okay, maybe it's funny only if you know both languages.
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