05/03/2009

How Dare He!?

Guardian Arts Corespondent Charlotte Higgins is upset, very upset. Like all Guardianistas she is all for diversity - but sometimes things can go too far! Things like the National Assembly of Wales' Minister for Culture and the Welsh Language speaking Welsh in the National Assembly Building during a concert performed by the Welsh National Orchestra! Clearly not an appropriate situation in which to use the Welsh Language.

How dare he? Shocking Behaviour! - Shouldn't be allowed - sack the ignorant hick. If this sort of insulting attitude towards the English Language is allowed to go unchecked in Cardiff where might it lead? - Italian operas in Glyndebourne? German in Covent Garden? Outrageous!

HT Victoria

5 comments:

  1. Many of the articles on the Guardian site welcome comments from readers, but curiously this wasn't one of them.

    (*cough* *cough* charlotte.higgins@guardian.co.uk *cough*)

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  2. some of these girls who are journalists are just lacking ...what to say , what to write

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  3. Almost as ignorant as a nationalist blogger not knowing the difference between being an Assembly Government Minister (actual job) and being a "National Assembly of Wales' Minister for Culture and the Welsh Language" (no such thing as you how can the executive be representing the legislature??)

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  4. Almost as ignorant as a nationalist blogger not knowing the difference between being an Assembly Government Minister (actual job) and being a "National Assembly of Wales' Minister for Culture and the Welsh Language" (no such thing as you how can the executive be representing the legislature??)

    What a silly bugger argument! Ministers are actually Ministers of the Crown not of the Assembly Government if one wants to be stupidly pedantic!!!

    But who cares? Does giving absolute titles actually have any baring on the discussion? No!

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  5. We're up against this bigotry every day. I heard someone in an Abergavenny pub complaining about 'racist' people who spoke Welsh in pubs in Wales. I said ''Oh, do you think people who speak English in English pubs are racist as well?" He said that was different. English was 'our' British language. I suggested that Welsh had been in Britain for much longer, and English was not better, just luckier. He became confused and started to backtrack.

    My partner said ''Don't worry about him. I know him and he's not very bright." But you would think a Guardian writer would have some intellect. She's just not bothering to apply it.

    It's best to be prepared for this sort of thing. Somebody told me about how he had slapped down a Welsh speaker about his 'nonsense' language by pointing out that 'eglwys' must be ripped off from the French. I thought this unlikely as French is a much younger language.It's not nonsensical to have cognates with other tongues.

    The next time he tried it on , I mentioned that Welsh had two words for table, bord and bwrdd. English didn't even have one. "You had to rip it off from Norman French. "Didn't you have tables before the Normans came? ...'le table'...and you can't even say that properly. It's pathetic really." The response was silence.

    I don't really harbour any prejudice against any language, not even English, but when people are behaving in this offensive and unjustified way, you have to take the war into the enemy's camp, just as a rhetorical strategy.

    Marianne

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