Why Indonesians have difficulty with English

[Alison Murie]

On Sep 26, 2009, at 8:46 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Why Indonesians have difficulty with English
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a Reuters article dated 10/17/2003 reporting Korean parents
> having the membrane under their children's tongues slit so that they
> can speak English without a Korean accent.  I have a copy on line but
> unfortunately not a link.  Here's the first paragraph:
>
> "Chop a centimeter or so off your tongue and become a fluent English
> speaker. That is the hope that recently drove one mother to take her
> six-year-old son for surgery aimed at ridding him of his Korean accent
> when speaking the language of choice in global business."
>
> I think I can email individuals a copy, but copyright prevents me from
> pasting the whole article into a listserv message.
>
> Herb
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Grant Barrett
> <gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
>> Subject:      Why Indonesians have difficulty with English
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> In an muddled opinion piece about English-learning in Indonesia is
>> this gem:
>>
>> "Indonesians reportedly have different length of tongue and other
>> organs in oral cavities from other people in the UK or the US who
>> speak English. This might be true, as well as hilarious, but the fact
>> is that people coming to the US, for example, can communicate well
>> without having to pronounce English like Sam in the Transformers
>> movie
>> or Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
>>
>> http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/26/revisiting-globalization-english.html
>>
>> Grant Barrett
>> grantbarrett at gmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The practice of slitting the frenum, to alleviate tongue-tiedness, in
newborns was fairly common in this country as recently as my birth
(1931).  I'm not sure when it went out of fashion.  The edition of Dr.
Spock that was current when my childen were born in the '50s, simply
stated that modern practice was to assume that a short frenum would
naturally stretch adequately in time.
AM

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org