NO MAS INGLES’?

As we all know, English is the most common language for our country. However, with all the immigrants expanding the population, rumor says that we are going to have to learn their language for better communication. This may be true, but should that keep us from making English the official language?

In Dennis Baron’s “Don’t Make English Official”, says that we should not make English official, but ban it instead. He even goes on to say that we don’t know how to spell our own language and even English teachers have come to rely on computer spell checkers. His opinion makes a strong impact on his readers, especially because of his experience as an English professor. However, I find his proposal just a little absurd.

We speak English. Most of us were born speaking it, just like the Chinese in China, the French in France, and the Germans in Germany. So, why shouldn’t English be our official language? Yes, it is okay for us to learn to speak different languages (as long as it is optional) but we honestly cannot depend on banning a language that may be the only language we know. Besides, if we ban English, what will be our official language?

Baron said, “We should ban English because it has become a world language.” “Remember what happened to all the other world languages: Latin, Greek, Indo-European?” Can we honestly say that English is a “world language”? If so, is English not the strongest language out of Latin, Greek, and Indo- European?

On the other hand, regardless of what our official language would be, we can only speak what we know. It’s not like we can fluently speak Hebrew tomorrow.

Do you think that English should or should not be our official language? Do we rely on the English language too much? If English should be prohibited, what should our language be?

To Smile or Not to Smile

Smiling is considered a gift. It is given to each and everyone of us as sign of happiness. So if we aren't happy, why smile?

In Anny Cunningham's essay, "why women smile" she tells her audience that women are required smile regardless of whether they are happy or half-dead. (a little exaggeration). when a woman is feeling lonely, sad, she must hide her feelings and smile to keep sane, but why?

When I finished reading Cunningham's essay, I felt like I was supposed to be deprived of my emotions because my gender requires an emotion that says, "I'm happy" whether I am or not. It is not okay for me to feel sad, or get angry because like Cunningham says, "Your real emotions are not welcomed here". Fortuantely, I wasn't because God gave women emotions to show how we feel, so that others will respond.

Women are emotional, it is who we are, it is what we do. Our emotions is what got us rights to work and vote. We didn't smile at the fact that men work their hardest to make us feel inferior, or refuse to let us be heard, we fought back angrily, happily, and showed every bit of it.

So why hide what we feel? Showing our emotions reflects who we are. There is no crime in that.

What do you think?