Bob, at 13:45 on May 17 1995, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> Fuck this, I'm just about ready to give up! You'd all have us
BG> believing that just about everybody in Europe learns English as
BG> a matter of course (and in some countries, perhaps they do),
BG> but apart from the major capitals, dad (who toured Europe last
BG> year) was amazed at the numbers who were unable to speak even
BG> the most basic of English in virtually every major city he visited. 

BL> ROFL!!! I did 6 years of French at school, Bill, 

Yeah, same here.  Fucking useless waste of time it was, too...

BL> but any Frenchman visiting Sydney who asked me where to take a dump in 
BL> French would come to the same conclusion as your father! I'd just 
BL> shout at him in English like everyone does... but if I visited 
BL> France I expect that it would come back to me and I'd be speaking 
BL> execrable French in a week or so.

Dunno, ours is not a good country to be using as an example, as we're far
too insular, migrants notwithstanding.  It's not so much our mentality as
our actual geographical location, being an island and all.

BL> Learning English and speaking Ebnglish are not the same, 
BL> especially when you try it in an Australian accent.

You've read Nino Culotta's "They're a Weird Mob" presumably ?  |-)

BL> We had a Dane working at Pye who came to Australia to learn 

Any wonder they were a dog of a TV set then.  Was he great though?

BL> English. ROFL! Of course, we sent him back swearing perfect 
BL> English, and with an appreciation for Hunter reds that he drank by 
BL> the flagon. I never did find out what happened when he said: 
BL> "Bugger me dead, Father, I have sinned," in confession.

ROFL!  You _have_ read Culotta then!

BL> I was making the point that the standard language is no longer
BL> French (Lingua Franca), and never was German. 

Would have been had Adolf had his way though.  NFSE.

BL> In any case, Germans learn English in school and many speak it.
BL> Helmut Kohl himself understands English well. but hides his awful
BL> accent by never speaking it.

And first Kennedy, and now Clinton both showed their ignorance, trying to
speak German with their incredibly bad accents.  Ergo, Kohl is no fool.

BL> As you know, France is a special case. Even if they knew it they
BL> would rather die than speak it (like the Pommies themselves), but

Yeah, you got that right!  Arrogant turds.

BL> the argument is about *knowing* English, not speaking it, and in 
BL> this Paul is quite right. I would guess that there is something 
BL> like a billion people who could make them selves understood in 
BL> English (with Japs, Koreans, Phillipos, Malaysians, Singaporeans, 
BL> Chinese, Indians, Africans, plus most of Europe and the Middle 
BL> East, and 500 million native speakers.

Dunno, I can only relay what is written in the Guinness Book of Records
(the new one catalogues CDs as well, I hear |-)), and it categorically
states that English is not the most widely spoken language in the world,
even though it's the most widespread.

BL> Of course, the guy in the street probably can't even speak his 
BL> native language very well anyway.

What do Australians have to do with this discussion?  |-)

Regards, Bill
@EOT:

--- Msgedsq/2 3.10 alpha