Words, words, words

I went to a German dinner party last night and I came away with a pair of edifying cultural observations about language.

1. Well meaning people usually respond to foreigners by being either pedantic or patronizing, often both.

Shame on them.

This is just an example of how the best intentions are rarely enough. Being friendly is a skill--for most it requires cultivation. In other words, it doesn't "just come when you cook the meat."

First, pedantry. Talking to a foreigner is not a chance for you to play teacher. If you want to be a teacher you should, I don't know, learn something and get a job teaching it. The teacher-student relationship is hierarchical. So no matter what your intentions are, when you play the teacher you subordinate the person you're talking to.

Being patronizing. The first thing any human being wants from you is respect; being patronizing by complimenting someone's basic language skills is inherently disrespectful. It's like when well educated blacks find themselves being called "articulate". Praising someone for doing something you find easy is tacitly to acknowledge their inferiority. That's something self-respecting people are loath to respond well to.

2. Native speakers abuse and take their language for granted.

What a waste.

Native speakers talk too fast, run their words together, don't speak in complete sentences, and don't make enough use of fun, interesting, or nuanced words and phrases.

It's nauseating. We've got 600,000 crayons in our box and we're scrawling with the nubs of seven of them! It's an embarrassment of riches, and we squander it.

Instead of floating like butterflies and stinging like bees, we merely buzz like flies.

What I wouldn't have given last night for a silver tongue instead of this lingua of lead!