{"id":4312,"date":"2011-06-02T06:27:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T10:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4312"},"modified":"2011-06-02T06:27:15","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T10:27:15","slug":"morning-read-croustade-kwashiorkor-and-an-end-to-english-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/06\/02\/morning-read-croustade-kwashiorkor-and-an-end-to-english-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: Croustade, kwashiorkor and an end to English-only"},"content":{"rendered":"

So here are two stories this morning that sort of fit together in my brain.\u00a0 Last night, the Washington County town of Jackson voted to repeal their English-only law.<\/p>\n

The rule passed last year drew criticism from immigrant and civil liberties groups, as well as some local residents.\u00a0 This from the Albany Times Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It sends an unwelcoming message about who we are, both to our community and to the greater community beyond Jackson,” resident Peg Winship<\/a> said before the board vote.<\/p>\n

“It also puts our town at financial risk because it is unlawfully discriminatory and unconstitutionally infringes on free speech and the right to access information about town\u00a0government.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, a Potsdam girl, Jane Wang, was bounced this week from the National Spelling Bee for failing to spell “croustade” and “kwashiorkor.”\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 This from the Watertown Daily Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately think French,\u201d she said, although she would rather work on words with other origins. \u201cI don’t like French words because they don’t follow the rules.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a writer, I’m constantly amazed by the way we humans play with and argue over language.\u00a0 Which words are valid?\u00a0 Which words do we own and which words are suspiciously “foreign”?<\/p>\n

And why is language so bound up in our personal and political identity?<\/p>\n

The truth, of course, is that English is itself a mutt language, the happy product of so many mergings and minglings that even our resident experts — like Ms. Wang — are baffled by its many twists.<\/p>\n

If language is identity, then foreignness and change are permanently wired into our linguistic DNA.<\/p>\n

As always, your thoughts welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So here are two stories this morning that sort of fit together in my brain.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions\/4313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}