Hello everybody.
After reading the �Winklepicker� Posts from �douglas� and, �stexstme� criticising my Post in the �Word of the Day� competition, I have decided to take no more part in this competition. I think that they believe that I scorn people who are not British or English.
My original intention was to take no part, but make no response. Then I remembered the ignorant English expression: �There�s no smoke without fire�, which people use when they want to justify repeating unproven gossip about a victim. So, any victim who remains silent is automatically judged to be guilty of the offence!
Reference has been made in the Forum to the apparent illiteracy of some of the Members.
Possibly I should have written at the commencement of each of my entries, �This Post contains several instances of IRONY�. (�To write one thing but to actually mean something different.�) This device is often used in humour, where the author writes �stupid things�, in the belief that the reader is sufficiently intelligent to recognise that the words that are written are not the true thoughts of the author, but are intended as a joke. On reflection, I think that this belief was misplaced.
Quoting my Post and referring to me, a gentleman who has the same name as mine, �douglas�, writes, Mr Douglas says: "After all, it was we, the English, who invented time." Sorry to burst your bubble, Sir Sandford Fleming was Canadian.
Members, do you think that the phrase: �It was we, the English, who INVENTED time" is meant seriously, or do you think that it is a deliberately stupid statement? My true feelings are: �I believe that God made TIME.
Incidentally Douglas, the people of Scotland, where Sir Sandford Fleming was born, are proud that he devised/invented /thought of a system for STANDARD TIME and TIME ZONES, but I don�t think that they claim that he actually invented TIME. Your Post, contradicting my stupid remark, appears to imply that he was the inventor of TIME.
I understand the phrase: �Sorry to burst your bubble� but I don�t know why you apply it to me. If your intention is to say that I am a language bigot, separated from reality, I am dismayed.
I take comfort from the hundreds of adult ESOL students, men and women, from all around the world, who rush to embrace me in the canteen of the College where I teach.
However, If your entry is intended to be ironically humorous, Douglas, I apologise for taking offence.
Dear �stexstme�, French was the first foreign language that I learned, when I was 11, and I have loved the language and the people ever since. I have generally found the French to be a courteous, kind, sensitive people. Sadly, it was when I read your Post that I made my decision to leave �Word of the Day�.
Others have written in the Forum about the personal problems that many of our Members have, and the burdens that they carry in silence, and yet they almost always have a smile on their face.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the American poet, wrote the poem �Solitude�, the opening lines of which are:
�Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone�.
You are quite right when you say that my Posts are wordy. It is a fault that I have. I am sorry that they are so long, �stexstme�, and that this appears to irritate you. But there is not a rule that says: �You must read every Post!� nor, �You must read it in its entirety!� There is always the �scroll� wheel on the mouse.
You write:
�I feel you�ve got a problem with being British! ... Well, anybody would!�
I have no problem with being British � I am proud to be British. I am proud of its language; its people; and their achievements. I am also proud of the fact that I teach ALL of my students to have exactly the same feelings about THEIR LANGUAGE and THEIR COUNTRY. Perhaps the fact that I have taken the trouble to learn most of their languages shows them that I am sincere in what I say.
I think that your phrase: �Well, anybody would!� is sarcasm, not irony.
To all the other Members, (especially the Dutch, whose language gives me such great joy), if I have inadvertently offended you with my Posts, I apologise, without reserve.
To the Members who have written to me with kind words, and especially on this occasion, to Mariethe House with her lovely compliment, I send you all a very big �Thank You!�
I wish everyone all the Very Best and success with �Word of the Day�.
Les Douglas
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