87% Say English Should Be U.S. Official Language

[Pathfinder]

Weeee......wiiiilllllll......doooooo.......aaallllllll........weeeeeee.....caaaaaan.......tooooooo........Heeeeelllllpppp.....youuuuuuu

OK, slower, but you forgot louder.

I was on a bus in the Cayman Islands some years ago, coming back from diving with the stingrays - very cool experience. The driver was Scottish, and most of us Americans. One of the passengers was whining about getting a sucker blister on his hand when the stingray sucked too hard to get at the chopped squid the diver had in his hand. Nothing major, just a hickey. The driver turned and looked at it, and said something with his wonderful Scots accent. The passenger obviously didn't understand, so the driver repeated it. Again not understood, and again the driver repeated it.

The passenger said "What?", so what does the driver do? He yelled at the passenger loudly and very slowly - "I've had splinters bigger than that!"

I was on the floor laughing at the louder and slower part - but mostly because they were both speaking English!

[jnevis]

You were in a different country, and you assimilated to the culture around you. And you STILL weren't speaking the native language!

That was aboard a US Navy vessel on a US Navy Base.  While in town I tried to use what little Japanese I learned to get around but most of the Nationals knew enough English to help if I couldn't figure it out.