Free Republic

Maryuri Aguilar received an unexpected bill in the mail for $900. The return address came from Indiana Department of Workforce Development. The bill claims the 26-year-old received unemployment benefits while employed for a company in Carmel. The problem with the claim is Aguilar doesn’t work in Carmel. In fact, she is currently looking for work. Aguilar speaks little English, however, she filed a police report hoping to clear her name and reinstate her benefits. “That is awful I can’t believe people would do that,” said an employed Executive Assistant Karen Stein. Cases like Aguilar's happen quite often. According to a...

In a perfect world, students might be judged by their ideas alone -- not by whether they write "you're" or "your." But that isn't the world we live in.It happens every time. As I hand the test out to my middle school students, one of them will invariably look up, pencil at the ready, and ask, "Does spelling count?" Let's ignore the fact that my students should know better than to even ask this question in the first place. I've answered it more times than I care to remember, usually in the fall of the new school year, and it...

(This is the second part of an ongoing series on federal "Common Core" education standards and the corruption of academic excellence.)The Washington, D.C., board of education earned widespread mockery this week when it proposed allowing high school students -- in the nation's own capital -- to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate. But this is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is doing to eliminate American children's core knowledge base in English, language arts and history. Thanks to the "Common Core" regime, funded with President Obama's stimulus dollars and bolstered by duped Republican governors and business groups,...

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right ? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution ? That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, editorial coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me...

"Have you considered how easy it is for us Norwegians to learn English?" asks Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo. "Obviously there are many English words that resemble ours. But there is something more: its fundamental structure is strikingly similar to Norwegian. We avoid many of the usual mistakes because the grammar is more or less the same. Faarlund and his colleague Joseph Emmonds, visiting professor from Palacký University in the Czech Republic, now believe they can prove that English is in reality a Scandinavian language, in other words it belongs to the Northern Germanic...

Swedes have the highest proficiency in English as a second language in the world, according to a new study which tested nearly 2 million people in 54 countries. Sweden, which finished fourth last year, moved up to first place in the study, carried out by education company Education First. “We are extremely proud that Swedes are the best in the world at English,” said Mats Ulenius, the head of Sweden’s branch of Education first. “One of the factors of our success is that we begin with English education already in lower school. Another is that we are exposed to a...

'The Magazine's recent article about the Britishisation of American English prompted readers to respond with examples of their own - here are 30 British words and phrases that you've noticed being used in the US and Canada.'

British people have long bemoaned the gradual encroachment of Americanisms into everyday speech, via Hollywood films and sitcoms. Now, "Britishisms" are crossing the pond the other way, thanks to the growing online popularity of British media such as Harry Potter, Downton Abbey and The Daily Mail. For example, BBC News reports that "ginger" as a descriptor of a red-haired, freckly person has shot up in usage in the United States since 1998. That's the year the first Harry Potter book, with its Weasley family of gingers, hit store shelves. The trend shows up in Google ngram searches, which track the...

The Arizona Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state law that requires elected officials to be able to read, write and speak the English language.

CORRALES, N.M. - A controversy emerged Tuesday night at the Corrales Village council meeting when the audience was asked to say the pledge of allegiance in Spanish. The words in Spanish on a projector didn't help, and even after the mayor explained that it's a village tradition, the crowd defiantly said the pledge in English. Corrales Mayor Phil Gasteyer said the incident was disrespectful, unfortunate and embarrassing. "There was some disrespect shown to the village and its residents," Gasteyer said. The mayor said he's never had a crowd challenge the Spanish language before. He said it could have something to...

Yes, General Motors really is giving $600 million to an English soccer club. Actually, as the team involved, Manchester United, is the most valuable team in sports, an investment in the club wouldn't be a bad idea, considering how everything else is going at General Motors. No, the $600 million GM is giving to Man United over the next 7 years is a sponsorship deal. In return, Man United will wear "Chevrolet" on their jerseys and GM will be able to call itself Man United's "global automobile partner." It will immediately have the edge with all those consumers who look...

Barack Obama made a trip to Ireland when he became President, and he bragged about the Irish heritage that he has on his mother's side. In his first book, he wrote about visiting Kenya, to celebrate his father's Kenyan roots. Then why is Mitt Romney being given a hard time on his visit to England, when one of his advisers mentioned that Romney is proud of his Anglo-Saxon heritage? Romney should tell his non-Anglo critics that they are guests and freeloaders, living in a country (America) that was founded by Anglo-Saxons. The Irish are cheered when they have their St....

Located more than 1,000 miles from the embattled border between the United States and Mexico, Scotland County definitely is not on the forefront of the immigration debate. That didn't prevent local law enforcement officials from getting a first-hand glimpse of federal policy recently. On Monday, June 4th, Scotland County Sheriff's Deputy Bryan Whitney initiated a traffic stop on Highway 136 east of Downing. The deputy pulled over a white Ford truck for a lane violation on suspicion of careless driving.

There have been few languages in world history that were spoken by more people as a second language than as a first. English has had that distinction for several decades already. Now, there are more people learning it in a given year than it has native speakers The second President of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that “English will be the most respectable language in the world and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the end of this one.” It is destined “in the next and succeeding centuries to be...

The future of written English will owe more to Hollywood films than Dickens or Shakespeare, if the findings of a study into children’s writing are anything to go by. The analysis of 74,000 short stories found that their written work was littered with Americanisms, exclamation marks and references to celebrities. Researchers who looked at the entries to a national competition found they were increasingly using American words such as garbage, trash can, sidewalk, candy, sneakers, soda, cranky and flashlight. The stories, written by pupils aged seven to 13, show how fairy cakes are referred to as cupcakes and a dinner...

Hundreds of North County parents packed a public hearing Tuesday evening, frustrated and upset over proposed changes for incoming students at two Encinitas elementary schools. If this proposal passes, starting next year new kindergarten students at Capri Elementary School would only have the option of enrolling in a dual-language immersion program, in which classes are taught in both Spanish and English.

In Puerto Rico, for the price of 20 delegates, Mitt Romney sold out his conservative principles. There is a long history of Congress requiring English to be the language of government and schools for territories seeking to be admitted to the Union — e.g., Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. For all of the territories that had large non-English speaking populations, Congress announced before the territories voted on the question of statehood that a change in language policy would be a prerequisite for statehood. In the case of Puerto Rico, where according to the latest Census only 15% of residents...

Rick Santorum's contention that in order for Puerto Rico to become a state English must be its principal language drew criticism Thursday from the U.S. territory's sole representative in Congress. "Santorum's view is narrow and a limiting view of what America is all about," said Pedro Pierluisi, a Democrat, on CNN's "Starting Point." "English is the predominant language in the U.S. and will continue to be so, whether Puerto Rico becomes a state or not." Puerto Rico will vote in November on a referendum regarding possible statehood. While campaigning Wednesday ahead of the island's primary on Sunday, Santorum told a...

The Puerto Rico primary is on Sunday and Rick Santorum made a quick campaign stop to the island. While there, he told Puerto Ricans that if they want to pursue statehood, they should make English their primary language, Reuters reports. Nevermind the fact that both English and Spanish are already the official languages of the territory. In an interview with El Vocero newspaper, Santorum said he does not support a state where English is not the primary language. "Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law," Santorum said. "And that is that...

The resistance has been broken. Wasn't going to post unless absolutely necessary, but a couple of these craigslist ads have got the Mr. Language Person part of me in a tizzy. First of all, check this one out. Seems the subdominant culture has come up with a brand new vehicle nomenclature system: Click here.That one is an all-time classic. Then, a new name has been invented for a Honda product. Check it out here: Click here.