@farmerman,
farmerman wrote:
thank you. Sometimes the threads get ahead of the story 9since there was no setup line in the thing that BVT posted I had no fuckin idea what everyone was all po;d about. Without context it woulda been a guess and then it wouldn't be funny. Whats funny is that it was actually played and people got all worked up over a Spanish version .
When I was in Catholic school and in the 3rd grade we often did a "Pledge of Allegiance" in Polish or Latin. I guess the absence of an internet didn't allow everyone to go viral with critique.
yes yes yes farmer, this is a much better "translation" of what I was trying to say, and how my brain was interpreting the picture.
BVT, I really appreciate your intelligence, humor and wit. I (and it looks like at least one other) just wasn't able to put the 3 (actually there's more than 3, more on that in a moment) components together to make any sense. It was simply an "I don't get it" moment when I first saw it, and came back later when I saw others post. I figured I could now see what it was about.
What (slightly) annoyed me was others telling someone else who didn't get it that they were obtuse, more or less faking not understanding it, and ultimately making it a big deal. I would have felt attacked if those things had been said to me, kind of like the cool kids in the school yard telling someone they weren't worth much.
Farmer, I was debating on whether to post the following, and something you said convinced me to do so. It's on the whole point of the language thing, which is ultimately (I think) what this is all about.
Firstly, right now I live in a place where Spanish is also spoken freely (gasp) out in public, even if the speaker also speaks fluent English. It's not, as far as I can see, assumed a Spanish speaker does not also speak English. If they are talking to Their friends or Their family or They are doing business in Spanish with someone else speaking the same language it doesn't raise an eyebrow. Some people do only speak Spanish....or Korean, Vietnamese, etc. It's not like they are willfully not learning English. If I moved to another country, I think I would eventually learn enough Spanish or Italian to get by, but as far as any other language, I'd be dead in the water for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I'll see women who look like they are recent immigrants, perhaps even illegals. They are here because their husband managed to get them here, and is supporting her and 3 or 4 kids by standing on the corner, hoping to get a day labor job.
He's working his ass off all day.....she's living in an apartment complex where everyone else speaks Spanish. She can't get anywhere except by bus, taking along 3 little ones. She's pretty much going to her home to the grocery store or Walmart and back again.
I'll be standing in front or in back of this woman in a line, and our eyes will meet. We smile at each other, and there's a look of hesitancy, shyness in her eyes, because her English, and my Spanish isn't enough to get past a smile, or me saying "Es mucho frio hoy!" or her replying "Si.....yes.....mucho frio"
She's not obstinate about learning, or stupid. She just doesn't have a second in the day to spare to learn.
Or it's someone bilingual talking to their tia or abuela. Yeah, like this 70 year old woman who's living with her family needs to get her ass in English class.
My grandmother lived on the same property as us growing up, in her own house. She moved to the U.S. when she was 13, and taught herself English. She was able to converse with anyone on any subject, and was a very sharp lady. I don't speak a word of her native language, but she was never at a loss for the proper word or phase when we spoke.
However, when she spoke to my mother (her daughter in law, who remained fluent in Polish, as she didn't learn English until she went to school, even though she was born here), or her other relatives or best friends, she immediately reverted to her native tongue. I'm sure she did this her entire life.
There was no social media tweeting about her, sharing stories of some woman who wouldn't speak English. No one cared.
BVT says he only "reports the news"
The thing is, again, no offese to you BVT, this world can't seem to differentiate any more between what is "news" and what is some half in the bag fool tapping away at his phone, like everything he says means something.
I have to question, not for purposes of this thread, but just in general, why this kind of stuff even gets any attention.
It's like everyone in the world considers themselves a Walter Cronkite or something. We don't even know when something is worthy of attention anymore. Everything's important. Everything needs to be commented on. Everything's worthy of debate.
Well guess what, none of that is true.
Number one, the national anthem and ATB have been confused forever. Big deal.
Number two, there's always people who want others to be just like them, but now instead of just annoying those in their immediate vacinity, now they get let the world know how they feel.....like I'm doing here.
There's no ******* discernment anymore. No filters as to what really matters, because it's too easy to grab your phone during the Superbowl, or while you're on the john taking a dump, letting everyone in on your personal pearls of wisdom.
Sorry, but this is not news folks.
