official english legislation

[spalmer]

>Yes, I believe this to be the likely outcome of a general statement
>with not specified applications.  At the very least it would be the
>can-opener piercing the smelly can of rotten worms.  I certainly would
>like to be a fly on the wall of the conference room in which a
>committee of legislators tries to define what is and is not English.
>

I rather doubt that they'll be much debate about varieties of English (with
the possible exception of Ebonics). The people that introduced this
legislation aren't linguists and expecting them to analyze language like
linguists is a bit much. The lack of linguistic knowledge is part of the
reasojn fopr legislation like this, after all.

Sean