I’m watching the news last week in Homestead, Florida where, according to the hot Latino newscaster, the police are “Targeting illegal meth labs”. So, I just have to ask; “illegal” meth labs, as opposed to “legal” meth labs? I’m so glad they are only targeting the illegal ones. I mean really, when you go through all the permits and zoning regulations to open up a legal meth lab, they really should let you run it as long as you stay within the state’s guidelines for running drug labs.
Silly for me to go off on this as it is really just one extra word but it is everywhere now. I’m sure I’m guilty of it as well but it just drives me nuts. No one listens to the language they use anymore.
Like people that go to the ATM machine or pre-heat an oven. The M in ATM stands for machine. ATM machine is redundant.
An oven is either heated or unheated. Pre-heated is unnecessary. If the recipe calls for you to place the food into a 350 pre-heated oven, it is really telling you to place the food into a 350 oven. If you didn’t know enough to turn the oven on earlier, you’ll just have to wait. Pre-heated is a useless term that too many people just accept as though it were a real state. “Pre-heated” takes time and heat into account. It was hot before our current place in time.
So what’s the difference from “heated”? It is hot at our current place in time. Well, unless you are cooking in some blast furnace in the basement of some industrial complex warehouse, ovens take time (some more than others) to heat. No oven that I know of, residential or commercial goes from “off” to “fully heated and ready to cook” in a split second. Even if you invented one, it still takes the time for you to push the button or turn the dial so at one point in time it is off, the other point in time, it will become heated. Pre-heated is STILL a useless term.
Unheated, heating and heated. Those should be the only options within normal operating parameters.
So now we have the official mandate that foreigners should learn to speak English. That’s cool. I’d really like that but I don’t think it should be an executable offence. I hate those people that run around and yell for anyone who can’t speak English to get out of the country. That’s a little too extreme. What about, “Make the attempt to become a meaningful member of society and learn to speak English or get out of the country.” I think that makes a little more sense. Hell, most people I know don’t speak proper English and most of the time that includes me. If I went to Italy, It would be stupid of me to not pick up enough Italian to get by. If I went to live there, it would be downright rude of me to not learn the language and expect them to know English. The reverse should also be true. If you are visiting here, try to get by in as much English as you can. If you are living here, learn (and use) English. Some people learn English but then they speak Spanish to each other. That’s also rude. I want to hit these people with a 2×4 when they do it in front of me but that’s just mostly the paranoia of me thinking they are talking in Spanish about ME.
I’ve been through Miami, Homestead and Florida City a lot in the last few months and I’ve been looking for the infamous Spanish street signs. For years I’ve heard that street signs in some areas of Miami are in Spanish. I was looking for them because I was going to run the stop sign and hope to get pulled over so I could tell the officer I’m not fluent in Spanish and had the sign read “STOP” instead of “ALTO” I may have understood what it meant.
I may have been accused of being a belligerent asshole once or twice in my life.
Anyway, I am happy to report that I drove through every type of area and saw no such animal. Everything (other than some businesses and a lot of billboards) was in English. The streets and roads may have had Hispanic names but the official signage was in English. I know it was silly of me to believe otherwise, but I was just told one too many times and thought that it could be true.
However, some of these horror stories may be true. My sister-in-law is a very talented medical professional but couldn’t get a job in El Paso, Texas because she doesn’t speak fluent Spanish. And it wasn’t just the hospitals; she says she couldn’t find ANY job out there that doesn’t require Spanish. That sucks.
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