More politics
Mar. 24th, 2004 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Some of you may remember my longass post about how the Pledge is stupid and the American's Creed is better. If not, you can no doubt find it in my memories (I'm at 200 now! Go me!)
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000630.html
I love this person. Seriously.
If any further evidence is needed that the purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance is to inculcate mindless loyalty to the state, it can be found in the fact that many children clearly do not understand what they are saying. This can be seen in the eggcorns that they construct. My mother tells me that as a little girl she believed that there was a thing called a legiance that she was pledging to the flag. She didn't know what it was. In today's column in the New York Times, entitled Of God and the Flag, William Safire reports that as a little boy he thought that the Pledge began "I led the pigeons to the flag". In a roundabout way, I think he understood it all too well.
THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT! Or one of them, anyway. It's wrong, dead wrong, to teach children to say big words they don't even understand, especially if you're expecting them to promise something. If they don't understand it, why should they say it? You're making them lie, even if they'd mean the sentiment. So, of course, by the time they understand what it means, they're just numbly reciting pitterpatterbabble. Stupid, really. If you're going to say something and not mean it, it might as well be something personal, like "I love you" or "I'm allergic to mushrooms".
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000630.html
I love this person. Seriously.
If any further evidence is needed that the purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance is to inculcate mindless loyalty to the state, it can be found in the fact that many children clearly do not understand what they are saying. This can be seen in the eggcorns that they construct. My mother tells me that as a little girl she believed that there was a thing called a legiance that she was pledging to the flag. She didn't know what it was. In today's column in the New York Times, entitled Of God and the Flag, William Safire reports that as a little boy he thought that the Pledge began "I led the pigeons to the flag". In a roundabout way, I think he understood it all too well.
THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT! Or one of them, anyway. It's wrong, dead wrong, to teach children to say big words they don't even understand, especially if you're expecting them to promise something. If they don't understand it, why should they say it? You're making them lie, even if they'd mean the sentiment. So, of course, by the time they understand what it means, they're just numbly reciting pitterpatterbabble. Stupid, really. If you're going to say something and not mean it, it might as well be something personal, like "I love you" or "I'm allergic to mushrooms".
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Date: 2004-03-24 07:29 pm (UTC)This reminded me of Ramona Quimby (you know, from the kids books? She was in preschool or something? Stop laughing at me!). Only for her, it wasn't the pledge, it was the National Anthem. I only remember the first bit, but for Ramona, it went something like...
Jose can you see, by the dawnzer lee light
And she would ask who Jose was, and what sort of lamp a dawnzer was, and why its light was lee. Hee.
</ rambling>
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Date: 2004-03-24 07:56 pm (UTC)Yeah, I remember that. Vaguely. That's even worse. At least you can say the pledge, but who on earth can actually sing our anthem?
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Date: 2004-03-25 03:20 am (UTC)