{"id":29840,"date":"2018-05-19T18:11:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T18:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29840"},"modified":"2018-05-19T18:11:43","modified_gmt":"2018-05-19T18:11:43","slug":"here-is-when-language-becomes-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29840","title":{"rendered":"Here is when language becomes important"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/index-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29813\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/index-1-300x162.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/index-1-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/index-1.jpg 306w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have commented already on this blog on the idiocy of the young lawyer who rants about people speaking languages other than English to each other.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is America!&#8221; he has bellowed to them. &#8220;Speak English!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This goofball apparently misses the rich irony of that moronic statement, given that the United States has no official language, let alone that <em>English<\/em> is that language.<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, I want to share a brief gripe I have about non-English speakers.<\/p>\n<p>It presents itself when I go to the grocery store and I need help finding an item on the shelf. More than once &#8212; indeed, I&#8217;ve lost count of the times this has happened &#8212; I have approached a store employee who&#8217;s stocking shelves and asked, for instance, &#8220;Excuse me, could you please tell where I can find the pickles?&#8221; I get that look, and a shrug, and a silent affirmation that the person doesn&#8217;t understand what I&#8217;ve just asked of him or her.<\/p>\n<p>That, right there, is what annoys me. It&#8217;s not so bad that I explode with an profanity-laced tirade. However, if a retail outlet &#8212; which is in the business of <em>serving the customer<\/em> &#8212; is going to put employees in contact with presumably English-speaking customers, it seems only right to ensure that those employees are able to communicate effectively.<\/p>\n<p>English isn&#8217;t the <em>official U.S. language<\/em>, but &#8212; with all due love and respect to my many friends whose first language is something other than English &#8212; it is the language most Americans speak regularly.<\/p>\n<p>Is that too much to ask?<\/p>\n<p><em>Of course<\/em> it isn&#8217;t!<\/p>\n<p>Gripe session is over.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have commented already on this blog on the idiocy of the young lawyer who rants about people speaking languages other than English to each other. &#8220;This is America!&#8221; he has bellowed to them. &#8220;Speak English!&#8221; This goofball apparently misses the rich irony of that moronic statement, given that the United States has no official &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29840\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Here is when language becomes important<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1596,7776],"class_list":["post-29840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-english","tag-official-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29842,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29840\/revisions\/29842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}