Defending the language with bullets: If you can read this in English, thank a soldier

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

Defending the language with bullets: If you can read this in English,  
thank a soldier

The bumper sticker on the back of a construction worker’s pickup truck  
caught my eye: “If you can read this, thank a teacher . . . .”

This homage to education wasn’t what I expected from someone whose  
bitterness typically manifests itself in vehicle art celebrating guns  
and religion, but there was more: “If you can read this in English,  
thank a soldier.”

And there it was: a “support our troops” bumper sticker that takes  
language and literacy out of the classroom and puts them squarely in  
the hands of the military.

It’s one thing to say that we owe our national security and the  
survival of the free world to military might. It’s something else  
again to be told that we need soldiers to protect the English language

But according to this bumper sticker, any chink in our armor, any  
relaxation of our constant vigilance, any momentary lowering of the  
gun barrel, and we’ll all be speaking Russian, Iraqi, or even Mexican.

..

find out what else is wrong with the suggestion, read the whole post  
on the Web of Language
____________________
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

http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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