English makes you fat

[Darla Wells]

So having a southern accent should make you really really fat, then? Bad logic
must make a person stupid.
Darla


On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:00:57 -0500, Dennis Baron wrote
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at UIUC.EDU>
> Subject:      English makes you fat
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> English Makes You Fat
>
> According to researchers at the Mayo Clinic, speaking English as a
> =20 second language makes you fat. ... doctors studying children
> enrolled =20=
>
> in Head Start programs in southern Minnesota have concluded that =20
> being Mexican and speaking English as a second language are both =20
> independent predictors of childhood obesity.  Immigration reformers,
> =20 quick to label Spanish as the language of the ghetto, are likely
> to =20 eat this news up..... Americans are already dangerously
> overweight.  =20 The Centers for Disease Control report that one
> third of American =20 adults and 17% of our children and teenagers
> are obese.  Still more =20 are at risk for obesity.  Adding English
> to our steady diet of junk =20 food and our sedentary lifestyle can
> only make things worse for =20 immigrants. .... But before we blame
> bilingualism again, before we =20 put a Surgeon General=92s warning
> on our English textbooks, before we =20=
>
> stamp out what little foreign language may be left in America in the
> =20 interests of reducing the national body-mass index, there=92s
> another =20=
>
> possibility that the Mayo Clinic researchers might want to explore ...
>
> to find out what it is, read the whole post and more on the Web of
> =20 Language:
>
> www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
> Best,
>
> DB
>
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
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