Subject: monolingualism is nothing to be proud of
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Sat Apr 28 2001 - 02:58:50 GMT
A couple of points of clarification for those eager
girls with the lovely bright eyes at the front of the class.
Pisse-en-nids was the term the mighty Charles de Gaulle
used when describing those of his compatriots who were
forever criticising his statesmanship & who so appeared,
like certain birds, to enjoy 'peeing in their own nests'.
(It is not, of course, to be confused with pissenlit which
has a rather similar root [cf., lit = bed; nid = nest] &
which refers to the dandelion from whose leaves a diuretic
infusion was prepared for patients in congestive heart
failure who as their urinary output increased would, indeed,
sometimes 'piss in their own beds.')
And yes, Sean, I think Forrest would have made a very
fitting candidate for such a democratic society as the USA.
By embodying his bland, unthreatening figure, Tom Hanks
now looks fair to win the American heart permanently as
outright champion.
Unfortunately, the governance of a great people demands
subtler & more advanced talents: talents which can really
only be fostered in a setting of financial security, educational
priviledge & family connections. Without these, what one
tends to find rising to the top is a kind of bookish
industriousness coupled with a ruthless, populist ambition
from which moral considerations are quite absent.
Since I imagine very many of the list came to adulthood
during the Clinton years, they still confuse that dreadful,
clammy embrace with warmth & all that compulsive reading
with intellectual rigour.
But learn they will. They will. In time. Understatement,
command, reticence, self-mockery - these are the real indicators
of calibre.
And remember, chaps, there's nothing like family.
Churchill, Asquith, Cecil...
Adams, Roosevelt, Kennedy...
Scottie B.
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