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We've had Official English for more than a year now, and I've yet to see any benefits.
For instance, the debate continues as to whether
Buena Vista
is pronounced Bwayna Veesta,
Buna Vihsta
or Bewnie,
and the state
government has not provided one whit of guidance or
clarification.
When I venture southward, Official English still doesn't
work nearly as well as Por favor, desiro una mas
cerveza.
Nor has the state performed the necessary repairs to
Saguache,
a town and county pronounced
Sawatch,
which is how the former mountain range is
spelled.
(Former? In 1986, I predicted that the Sawatch Range would disappear. Examine at the color weather map on the back page of this section. Look east of Gunnison, where Colorado's highest mountain range once stood. Ouray, Shavano, Tabeguache, Antero, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, La Plata -- they've vanished.)
Obviously, the state is not serious about Official English. France and Iceland support national academies of concerned scholars to guard the purity of their tongues, and we need our own.
Its first task should involve the names of public facilities. I was born in Weld County General Hospital. We once had Salida Hospital here. These are good names which instantly tell you the where and what.
Now, however, there is the Northern Colorado Regional
Medical Center and the Heart of the Rockies Regional
Medical Center. Neither name gives you a clear idea of the
location -- just like Greeley, Keota and Carr are in
northern Colorado, and many towns besides Salida have
touted themselves as the Heart of the Rockies.
Anything from a storefront clinic on up can qualify as a
medical center.
Then the English Enforcers should go after corporate
names on the same grounds. Once there was Climax
Molybdenum Co.,
which mined molybdenum at Climax.
What's an Amax?
Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph,
or even
the shorter Mountain Bell,
told you where the
company operated and what it did. Can you divine that from
USWest
?
After cleaning house there, they could ban the word
event.
I thought Hank Gathers died of a heart
attack, but a physiologist just called it a cardiac
event.
When buildings were falling and freeways collapsing in
the Bay Area last fall, it looked like an earthquake. But
no, the experts called it a seismic event.
Get two feet of snow coupled with subzero weather and
brutal winds, as the Front Range did a fortnight ago, and
it is not a blizzard, but a storm event.
You wonder
whether the first newscast after World War III would calmly
mention the recent thermonuclear event.
If we're going to be stuck with Official English, it might as well do us some good. The amendment says the legislature can pass appropriate enforcement laws; where are they?
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