[PRCo] Re: Answer to Fred III's post on bilingual drivers

[Fred Schneider]

The most important thing you said is copied below, Herb.

On Dec 10, 2007, at 2:55 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> That word, "learn" is the key. Anyone who refuses to continue with  
> their "education" needs their ass kicked, especially in today's  
> world.  Education is not just a 12, 16, 18, or 20 year experience.  
> It is actually a never ending process.

The other thing you said that I picked up on is that the people in  
London don't speak English.   Oh yes they do.    Funny thing those  
English.   They put more emphasis on how you speak than we do.   If  
you speak it correctly, you can have a good job.   If you don't, then  
you can be a flower girl in the market.   Remember the play  
Pygmalion?  [From Wikipedia: (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw  
based on Ovid's tale of Pygmalion. It tells the story of Henry  
Higgins, a professor of phonetics (based on phonetician Daniel  
Jones), who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can  
successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a  
refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class  
accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and  
Doolittle grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways  
and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill – a young, poor,  
gentleman.  Play repeated by movie My Fair Lady.]   Britain is still  
like that.

If you listen to the people reading the morning news on the telly, it  
is as crisp and clear as the Today show in the U. S.   But if you sit  
in a pub in East London, or Liverpool or Bristol, my God man, you're  
in a different world.

For the most part, after fifteen visits to England, I'm equally  
comfortable in  English and American.   But Bristolean, Cockney and  
Glaswegian sometimes give me fits too.