Inappropriate Video

This video shows a man, particularly a black man, who keeps approaching an asian Wal-Mart employee and he asks him where stereotypical asian items would be located. The Wal-Mart employee gets angry at the man asking the questions and calls him racist for coming to him to ask. The reason he calls him racist is because he was working in the athletic department and the black man comes to him and asks him where the soy sauce is, which is obviously not in the athletic department. I think this video is inappropriate because the black man kept going up to the asian man and asking him where items are just to get under his skin and make a funny video. The problem with this is that every time he asked the asian man where an item was and he got angry, he was demoted by his manager to another section for being rude to a customer. Eventually, he was demoted to pushing in carts from the parking lot. The reason he got demoted in the first place was because of the black man constantly asking him the stereotypical questions. That was very unnecessary for the man to ask those questions to that Wal-Mart employee. Because it was so offensive to the asian man, it should be removed from YouTube.

This video should not be taken off of YouTube because if it was to be taken off it would violate the freedom of speech. Roger Rosenblatt agrees when he says “the Constitution only states that government has no right to prevent free expression (502).” The person who put the video online did it so he could make people laugh; he was expressing himself. He probably didn’t really mean anything bad from it. He was just trying to have some fun.

Works Cited

Rosenblatt, Roger. “We Are Free to Be You, Me, Stupid, and Dead”. Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Eds. Paul Eschholz,    Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 501-03. Print.

Essay #4 Summary

The thesis of my paper states that English should become the official language of the United States. It should become the official language because it could bring cultures together by having a common language for everyone to share, it could give America more authority by having the title of English as the official language, and it could possibly lower costs by not having to employ translators in schools and businesses. It could also make communication easier by having a set language for governmental and educational aspects of the country and it could reduce the amount of complaints by Americans about the issue due to the problem of no set language being solved.

The argument against my thesis is that English should not become the official language of the United States. This argument is incorrect because with more and more immigrants coming to America, English could become less common. This is not good because America interacts with everyone with the English language so if many people come to America without knowing English, they could really struggle. This argument with more than likely disagree that it would bring cultures together and say that it would tear them apart by not allowing them to speak their first language. Taking away an immigrant’s first language would not happen; they could speak their first language at any time they want, but if they want to interact with government and education they would have to know English. This argument would also probably say that it would be very difficult for immigrants to have to learn English, especially if they are older, but a solution to this problem could be that, upon entry, immigrants would have to take introductory English classes provided by America.

Making English the official language of the United States would be more beneficial to the country and its people than it would be detrimental to the country and its people. The pros out-weigh the cons for making English official.

Official Language Should be English

An article that I found that could be useful to my paper is called “Toward making English the official tongue” and the main point of this article is to point out how much other languages such as Spanish are becoming more and more seen in America and could cause problems within the US. The American workforce is said to be mostly immigrant workers in the coming years and if they don’t speak English that could be a problem because English is how people speak to one another in America. Many schools across America are already having to hire more bilingual or multilingual teachers so that they can instruct many types of students instead of just the ones that speak English. This could be a problem though because costs could go up within school systems that wouldn’t be necessary if everyone had to learn English. English has always been the sole language of America and with a lot of foreign people coming into America there is a lot of miscommunication going on. There is nothing wrong with foreign people coming to America, but if they do come they should make learning English a priority. Without English people can’t communicate to government officials or in school systems very well. Also, the author states that with the push to get other languages involved with government and school systems there is so much changing that would have to go on and then it is like America is not the same. America can still be the ‘Melting Pot’ and have many cultures by assimilating, but we need to have a central language that can connect all cultures and languages for the purpose of communication.

In-Class Discussion and Answer to “Official Language” Research Question

In class, my partner and I discussed how we felt about America being an “universal nation”. We felt that if America made it’s official language English it could definitely still be considered an “universal nation”. People would still be able to come to America from all over the world, they would just make sure they know how to speak at least some English. English should become the official language of the United States. The English language is pretty much already the official language anyway; it is just an unwritten rule that America follows. Most everyone in America speaks English. Our schools teach everything in English, our huge businesses in America interact with each other in English, our government interacts with its people in English. If English was made the official language of the United States, nothing much would be different since we already use it on a regular basis. Some people, however, mostly immigrants, would probably get angry with English becoming an “official written law”. On the other hand, some immigrants may agree with having English as the official language because with America being an “universal nation,” there are many people from all over the world who speak many different languages, so they wouldn’t want another language to surpass English after they spent so much of their time trying to learn English. Also, America is with 15% of countries in the UN that don’t have a declared official language. Most people in America feel like English should be the official language.

Krauthammer believes that English should become the official language of America as well. He says that English being the most common language could change if we don’t change our assimilation norms, the way we so easily accept immigrants and don’t allow them to speak a certain language. He brings up that people who come to America have the right to be able to speak whatever language they want, but when they come to America, everything they do is going to be in English. He also says that by making English the official language of America it would not be racist. The  United States is so multicultural and a united language would bring all the cultures together as one, which is far from racist. If everyone were speaking different languages, that cultural unity may not exist.

“Creeping Illiteracy”

The “creeping illiteracy” that Bill Bryson speaks about in “The Hard Sell: Advertising in America” is mostly found in the form of grammatical mistakes. Some examples that Bryson uses are, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” and “pantyhose that fits you real comfortable”. Some advertisers would use grammatical mistakes in their ads probably to get the attention of all sorts of people. In a lot of today’s society, grammar isn’t that big of a deal and it probably has to do with where you live. It’s kind of like dialect of an area; there are some areas, particularly more country areas, that have so many grammatical mistakes in the way they speak and most of the time in the way they write as well. Advertisers want to target as many possible customers as they can so maybe if they use slogans that have some grammar issues in them it will attract people who don’t care about grammatical issues, bringing in more customers. Another way that being illiterate in an advertisement might benefit advertisers is that maybe they are doing it for entertainment purposes. If someone sees that the slogan for a company has a grammatical error in it, it might make them laugh a little and make them want to buy the product associated with the slogan. Many companies use characters to help advertise their products and with the characters comes silly voices and illiteracy in the way they talk. A lot of people won’t care about the grammatical issues if they see a funny character as the one speaking. Also, most of the time, these characters are directed towards a younger audience, which may not even notice that there is a grammatical errors at all, simply because they haven’t learned about grammar yet. If being grammatically incorrect helps a company sell more products then they’re going to keep doing it, no matter how stupid they may sound sometimes.

Summary of George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

George Orwell thinks that the English language is going downhill because of politics and economics. He says that modern day English has many bad habits which is being spread by imitation; other people just copy the bad habits and it spreads to everyone who can speak English. He then goes on to discuss some of the bad habits that are used in the English language. The first one is called a dying metaphor; these are metaphors that have lost their meaning or just don’t seem to make sense. They’re just put in writing because the author might think it sounds better but he/she doesn’t care about whether or not it makes sense or has a great meaning. Another habit that Orwell talks about are verbal false limbs, which are added syllables or words to make a simple verb into a phrase or make a phrase look symmetrical. Orwell would say this adding of syllables and words is unnecessary. Another bad habit that is used regularly in the English language is pretentious diction, which is the adding of larger words or more scientific words to “dress up” a simple statement and make the author or speaker sound smarter. The last habit that is used in the English language is meaningless words; this is when an author or speaker uses words that either are too vague or they have so many different meanings that they can be interpreted in any way the reader feels is the right meaning. That is the intention of the author or speaker, to get the reader to interpret their words in any way they choose, so they can make themselves more likable. I would have to agree with Orwell that the English language has gone downhill and there are bad habits that are used daily. One of the biggest problems now is that people are lazy so they use those habits to get out of doing more work. This use of language that Orwell talks about can be seen every day and is being used more every day, so it is easy to agree with what he says.

Doublespeak and Propaganda

Doublespeak is described by William Lutz as a blanket term for language which pretends to communicate but doesn’t, language which makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant attractive, or at least tolerable (249). Basically, all that doublespeak does is hide the meaning of a word or phrase or misrepresent that word or phrase to change the meaning. A type of doublespeak is an euphemism, which is a word or phrase that is inoffensive or positively connotated to avoid an unpleasant situation (249). Euphemisms can be used by politicians and other leaders to make something bad sound good or at least make them sound not as bad; for example, instead of using the word “killing”, they would say “arbitrary deprivation of life” (Lutz). Another type of doublespeak is inflated language, which just takes a simple word or phrase and makes it sound more professional. Lutz uses this example, “car mechanics may be called ‘automotive internists'” (251). Doublespeak is used to mislead people, but it is created throughly with clear thought. Many people who use doublespeak are trying to be sincere and protect other people’s feelings. Mostly politicians use doublespeak to get people to interpret the words they say in one way, when really they mean something else. Words can be used as tools and weapons according to Lutz (251).  The easiest uses of doublespeak to identify are the less sophisticated uses. There is an example in paragraphs 20-21 that specifically points out a more sophisticated use and Ronald Reagan is using doublespeak in an advertisement and he goes on to say that almost all commercials are misleading in some way (253). Commercial producers just want you to buy their product or buy your vote for them.

Propaganda is a unrecognizable way of persuading people and can be used for good reasons and bad reasons (Cross). It can help a person decide what kind of products they use daily or who they vote for in an election. Propaganda works better on an uncritical audience, or everyday people (209). There are many different types of propaganda that are used daily. One type of propaganda that I might use for my essay is the argumentum ad hominem, propaganda that is used not to discuss the issue at hand, but to attack a person or the people involved in the issue. I think this is one of the biggest types because it is used so often by politicians and big companies. Another type of propaganda that I may use for my essay is glittering generalities. Glittering generalities are where words with positive connotations are used to make a subject sound better or more persuading.

Works Cited:

Lutz, William. “The World of Doublespeak “. Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Eds. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 248-58. Print.

Cross, Donna Woolfolk. “Propaganda: How not to Be Bamboozled”. Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Eds. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013. 209-19. Print.

Four Videos I Could Use

“The Choice” – Obama For America TV Ad:

Family Strong | Hillary Clinton:

Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like:

New 2015 Feat Adam Levine Proactiv Commercial 2015:

Stephen King Blog Post

Stephen King talked about how you have to read bad prose so you can learn how not to write and good prose so you can learn how to write with style and good plot development. He also says that good writing will come from constant reading. I think that King’s conclusions can be applicable to the excerpts we are reading in our english class because throughout the semester we will be reading good prose and outstanding prose (I’m not sure if we’d be reading any bad writings since all the excerpts were published in a text book), and we can take useful information from both the okay and excellent writings. So far in English 101, we have read multiple excerpts from the textbook Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers and have extracted many useful skills from these excerpts to maybe try to embed in our essays we write for the class. For example, in our latest reading, Words Don’t Mean What They Mean, by Steven Pinker, the most useful information we pulled from his writing was how to use organizational skills in writing a good essay. In another excerpt we read in class, by Mary Pipher, I could extract information about how to show theme throughout an essay. King’s conclusions about reading good and bad writings can be a very efficient way to improve an individual’s way in which they write. King’s method can be used in our English class, as well as in every day writings as well, such as magazine articles, menus, and social media.

Pinker: “Words Don’t Mean What They Mean”

In his essay, Steven Pinker uses examples to show how “words don’t mean what they mean.” Examples that he used that stood out to me were when he referred to specific events in a movie, called Tootsie, and a tv show, called Seinfeld, to point out that people literally don’t say what they mean. Pinker says, “Make too blatant a request, as in Tootsie, and the hearer is offended; too subtle, as in Seinfeld, and it can go over the hearer’s head.” In Tootsie, Pinker tells us that the main guy character is dressed like a girl and the girl he likes tells him that she wishes a guy would just tell her that he wanted to make love to her, instead of trying to use a dumb pick-up line. The main guy character comes to the girl later in the movie and does exactly that and gets slapped across the face. In the tv show, Seinfeld, the main character, George, gets asked by his date if he would like to come up to have some coffee after their night out and he declines because coffee keeps him up at night. Later in the episode he realizes that ‘coffee’ in the context she used didn’t mean coffee; it meant sex. I think most people, including myself, have found themselves in similar situations as both of these examples. Sometimes my girlfriend will be brutally honest with me and tell me that my breath stinks; of course I take offense to this, as the girl in the Tootsie example did when the guy blatantly told her that he wanted to make love to her. Other times, however, my girlfriend will offer me gum out of the blue and I will gladly take the gum, not thinking of any specific reason why she would offer it to me, and because I enjoy gum. Later I will realize it was because she thought I had stinky breath, but she didn’t want to be blunt about telling me about it, just like George’s date in Seinfeld didn’t want to be blunt about wanting to have sex with him.