[MD] Language and The Tower of Babel

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Case]
It has been tried in various places in various times. But even colleges that
used to require at least one foreign language started allowing BASIC and
FORTRAN as options. There simply isn't any urgency about this.

[Arlo]
I thought the country was degenerating. Or in danger of doing so, if there isn't
better communication across the population? I'm not sure how you can go from
"urgent crisis" to "simply isn't any urgency" like that.

What I'm trying to get at is, is it "communication" that's truly important to
us, or "other people speaking English"? These aren't really the same thing when
you think about it.

Because if its the first, I'm all with you. If its exclusively the second, well,
I don't see why someone ordering a cheesesteak in Spanish is going to destroy
our communities. If its "better communication", then what's wrong with moving
both sides towards more fluent communication with larger populations? That way,
when someone with weak to moderate English skills travels across the country,
and finds herself in a situation where her English simply isn't up to the task,
the chances of her communicating are greatly increased if both her and whomever
she is speaking with BOTH know English AND Spanish. No?

[Case]
If you are asking do I think it would be a good thing to require Americans to
learn a foreign language, well sure, I guess. I mean we make them learn math
but frankly given the requirement I would opt for BASIC.

[Arlo]
Do people still use BASIC? Holy cow, that takes me back to my Apple II days...