Re: Unable to communicate.

Philip wrote: 
Unable to communicate.
"Microsoft: ( Dictonary ) aims to replace all others".
Should be Microsoft's Dictionary aims to replace all others.

The trouble is America, doesn't have an official language and other nations
have different sayings different spellings and so on. For a nation that
doesn't have an official language how are they going to achieve this?

Arm candy (USA): A good-looking woman with whom a man does not have a
relationship but whom accompanies him to a social event, often for a fee.
( Whose candy? ).

Preloved (Australia and New Zealand): Used euphemistically to describe an
article for sale which is second hand.

Toenadering (South Africa) The process of getting closer or rapprochement
between political parties.

Yancha (HongKong): The social practice of going to a tea house, the
equivalent of going to a pub (UK) or bar (USA).

Puh-leeze (USA): Used facetiously to express astonishment, disbelief or
indignation.
(Stupid cunts. )

Gump (USA): To muddle through difficult situations thanks to a series of
lucky chances - derived from the 1994 film Forrest Gump.
( Please do *** off and die. )

England, and Britain, speak and spell differently to Americans so does
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Hong Kong, and so on all have
their own sayings and spellings and I do not think that anybody will ever
want to come over in any way like a fucking American wanker.

New edition definitive English dictionary:
( Microsoft Windows ) and languages:
"Windows has support for many languages except English. It supports Arabic,
Armenian, Baltic, Central European, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew,
Indic, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Traditional Chinese,
Turkic, Vietnamese and Western European languages. It also has support for
many different localised languages a list of which can be found on
Microsoft's website".( Which is written in what? Haha. )

"An estimated 50% of all Americans cannot fill out a job application. Nearly
75% of America's unemployed have trouble reading and writing".
http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/services/SecondStart/about.html


I'm not sure whether this was meant to be a pejorative piece against Microsoft or the United States or the English language. However, it doesn't matter which of the three was intended because there are certain issues that nullify whatever point the writer of the preceding text was trying to make.

First, any moderately educated native speaker of English in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australian can fully understand any other moderately educated native speaker from all these countries (with the exception of a few colloquialisms which can be easily learned on the spot). But even the colloquialisms from these countries are all part of the entire package we call the English language, and they will most likely be recognized and probably can be easily discerned by a moderately educated native English speaker on his or her first hearing them -- based on the context in which they are spoken.

I'm sure this same situation exists in most languages whose speakers live in widely separated countries.

Second, an 'official' language is a political ploy, and it's not something that really matters in a true democracy (which I am not claiming the United States is or isn't). A language is merely a communication tool, and any other duties and characteristics that are laid upon it by various groups are so laid for the exclusively purpose of dividing the proverbial 'us' from the proverbial 'them'. It's a childish ploy used by zealots and bigots.

Third, 73% of all statistics (including this one) are made up on the spot by those who wish to drive home a point but don't have any cogent arguments supporting that point.

I'm not sure what the point of "Windows has support for many languages except English" was. I must hazard a guess that the author meant to write: "Windows has support for many languages other than English". But, if the author meant what he wrote, then he's wrong; Microsoft Window's first and still primary language is English. Not that this matters because Microsoft's Office XP dictionary is inadequate, as is its grammar checker.

It is a sad state of affairs though, that there are so many folks in the United States who have difficulty reading and writing English. But that really speaks to the issues of the 'dumbing down of America' and all the New World Order, one world/one government, conspiracy theory hooey than it does to the value of English as a language or the value of 'Americans' as a people.

Also, in the following quote from the original post, the second 'whom' is grammatically incorrect:

"Arm candy (USA): A good-looking woman with whom a man does not have a
relationship but whom accompanies him to a social event, often for a fee."

The second 'whom' should have been 'who'.

As a native speaker of English (the United States version, if such a beast truly exists), I have to say that I doubt that anyone with any sense will give much credence to any definition of any word that Microsoft may deem proprietary enough to include in its dictionary. And, if there is a subsciption fee or a license attached to it (as with their software), Microsoft's dictionary is doomed.
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