English, the Official Language?

Why is there a debate over making English the official language of this great country of ours? Regardless of your stance on illegal immigration I cannot see how one would oppose this resolution. However, before we pass such a resolution I think that we should all agree on one thing; which English language will we make official?

Couldst thou make an argument for the English language of our ancestors? I believeth that it would help us in the reading of the King James Version of The Holy Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Asideth from that, I don’t find much use for it.

What about txt language? I no U might take a min or 2 to d-cipher it, but it wud save some printer ink. And speling don’t madder.

Then there is gangsta, Southern, Yankee, valley, surfer, and Spanglish we must consider.

With all of the choices we have before us is it any wonder that English, as I was raised to speak it, is fast becoming obsolete? We have become too reliant on spell- check on our computers to worry about spelling.

Proofreading, which should be more efficient, has actually become less so. People who are paid serious money for advertising campaigns are even showing their ignorance. One such instance was a commercial for the electronics superstore, Rex. Their slogan, "Should’ve gone to Rex" was broadcast, "Should OF gone to Rex."

A local carpet store has misspelled the word "value" in one of its commercials - and they continue to run it this way. I understand how some of these things can occur. My fingers get a little dyslexic over the keyboard as well. But shouldn’t companies we pay to promote our wares in the business world be more efficient?

These inadequacies are not limited to the advertising world. The father of a friend of mine recently had a book published. The publishers should be shot for butchering his book the way they did. You would think that you would blame the author for the mistakes but it is obvious that the publisher did a text search on the computer and replaced the word "conversation" with the word "conservation."

This simple juxtaposition of letters, needless to say, completely changes the context of the story line. It was very annoying and made it difficult to maintain any continuity while reading.

Where do we find the worst culprit of all? Why, on the Internet, of course.

I do realize that many things I see posted on the Web are posted by people who are doing their best to write in a language that is foreign to their country. I appreciate their desire to write in a language I can understand and can forgive the occasional flaw. Lord knows I can’t begin to write in another language.

Maybe our focus need not be on making English our official language. Maybe it should be on learning to use our English properly. Methinks that would prolly be best 4 us all, Bro.