Want A Cheesesteak? 'Speak English'

B

Buckdodgers

Guest
(AP) A City Council member jumped into the debate over a sign at one of Philadelphia's best-known cheesesteak joints that reads: "This Is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'SPEAK ENGLISH.'"

During the council's meeting Thursday, Councilman Jim Kenney asked Geno's owner Joseph Vento to take the small sign down. The English-only ordering sign has irritated some activists in the diverse neighborhood of South Philadelphia and drawn national attention.
Want A Cheesesteak? 'Speak English'

Well :dunno: Whats the Problem?
image1697157g.jpg
 
I agree ! Speak English ! If you go to an Italian trattoria then you can speak Italian there or in a German resturant & tavern then you can speak German there. The owner wants you to speak English so he can make your food order perfect and right the first time around and save him money on wasted food because it was not made the right way the first time around.
 
i'm an american but i don't speak english, hell i don't talk at all. but i do asl , or a plain old pen and paper , does that mean i go hungry or do i get fead. i understand to a point . but dame he not a doctor , so put a menue on the counter and let them point to what they want . oh i forgot time is money . :wtf:
 
I can't speak English but I can do e-language. :D
 
I saw the guy's interview on TV.

He didn't seem mean-spirited about the rule. He was very straight forward.
 
I've been to restaurants in other countries where I didn't know enough to speak their language, or when I tried, I still couldn't fully make myself understood. In Italy, people were kind enough to help me, thankfully. But I think I would've been scared to try it if I saw a sign that said, "Stamo in Italia; solo parla italiano." (Might've screwed up my grammar a bit...oh well.) I would've left and gone somewhere I thought was going to be friendlier.
 
What about us? We do not speak English, we use ASL or PSE.

I don't go any restaurant where their employees does not speak English anymore cuz they do not understand me when I order foods. How can they read my written broke english and not understand me if they do not speak english at all?

I am glad this person speak out and let others know how we feel about non-speaking english.
 
jazzy said:
What about us? We do not speak English, we use ASL or PSE.

I don't go any restaurant where their employees does not speak English anymore cuz they do not understand me when I order foods. How can they read my written broke english and not understand me if they do not speak english at all?

I am glad this person speak out and let others know how we feel about non-speaking english.
Click to expand...

ASL and PSE consist of engilsh word. Each sign ia a word the someone who speaks english wuold understand so i dont thing that works.
 
Heath said:
I agree ! Speak English ! If you go to an Italian trattoria then you can speak Italian there or in a German resturant & tavern then you can speak German there. The owner wants you to speak English so he can make your food order perfect and right the first time around and save him money on wasted food because it was not made the right way the first time around.
Click to expand...

So, in other words:

If you're visiting from another country and don't know English, you can't eat here.

If you're deaf and can only communicate through sign language, you can't eat here.

Of course, they'll "help you" say it -- but that probably doesn't amount to doing anything except "I'll say it and you repeat it." Way to go to make people appreciate English more!

This has nothing to do with getting the order right. This only has to do with people being xenophobic about cultures that don't speak the same language as they do. People are afraid.
 
SB_GB_4ever said:
ASL and PSE consist of engilsh word. Each sign ia a word the someone who speaks english wuold understand so i dont thing that works.
Click to expand...

No they don't. Someone who does not know the sign language alphabet cannot understand ASL, PSE, SEE, or any sign language. They can imitate it with crude, vulgar gestures, and can probably understand if the deaf person mouthed the words and they read the deaf person's lips and gestures.

I can say, "uno!" and you'll think I'm talking about a card game, when I'm really saying "one!" in another language. Just like I can sign "Coke" and you think I want drugs.

You don't write in ASL. You don't write the hand symbol "A" or the sign with arrows like you see in ASL dictionaries. That means that people who use ASL are considered BI-LINGUAL.
 
Well, it's obvious. nearly around the world, English is the most used language.
 
Steel X said:
Well, it's obvious. nearly around the world, English is the most used language.
Click to expand...

Can you double check that? From all the reading I've done, Mandarin Chinese is the most widely used language in the world. The U.S., Canada, England, and various other English-speaking countries are no match for the total number of Chinamen.

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/languages/languages4.html
http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_1.htm
http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/sprakfrageladan/english/sprakfakta/eng-sprak-i-varlden.html
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/ask_earl/page?d=20050613
http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

It's even argumentive that there are more people speaking Hindi (India, Asian Indian), or Spanish (South America, Latin America, Mexico) than English speakers in the world.

Chinese way outnumber Americans. Only in America do people think it's "required" that everyone speak English.
 
Nothing wrong with it.

Employees and customers have to speak in English language espeically reading/writing.

Too many Hispanics works in fast food resturants, store departments and others. If they come to USA, they must practice English language.

If they refuse to speak property English language, just go to Taco Bell....

~~~~~~~~

Some of fast food resturant Hispanic cashers always ask their bosses to double check the written order in English from me. :roll:
 
Thats the Problem,,When your deaf if you cant talk people might not serve you.But if youre deaf and can talk try to speak what you want in english then youll get good service.My advice to deaf people who cant talk have a speaking friend to order for you.
 
Dennis said:
Can you double check that? From all the reading I've done, Mandarin Chinese is the most widely used language in the world. The U.S., Canada, England, and various other English-speaking countries are no match for the total number of Chinamen.

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/languages/languages4.html
http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_1.htm
http://www.ling.gu.se/projekt/sprakfrageladan/english/sprakfakta/eng-sprak-i-varlden.html
http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/content/ask_earl/page?d=20050613
http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

It's even argumentive that there are more people speaking Hindi (India, Asian Indian), or Spanish (South America, Latin America, Mexico) than English speakers in the world.

Chinese way outnumber Americans. Only in America do people think it's "required" that everyone speak English.
Click to expand...

Yea... Steel X... Only USA, Canada, UK, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are mostly English-Speaking but not limited for everybody to do it.

In California, alot of Latino live here also mostly of them are work at fast food, department store, construction (65% of Latino are builders in CA), shopping mall and even more. LA school district and many of school district in CA are bilingual education, no limited for language to speak. I only know about some of spanish language and it's interesting to learn about it. Discriminate against speak-spanish are violate of CA law and all students that who attends public school are required to attend English Learn class to earn diploma but required to pass alternative state exam for English Learners. California offers free english class for adult Latino and other immigrants to attend but it's optional. Latino are growing rapidly to most part of USA than CA does and don't force them to speak english, it's their decide to speak or not.

If not accept to serves for deaf people because of ASL are violate of ADA.

On CIA factbook, Official language in USA is English and Spanish in sizable.
 
Reba said:
It depends on whether you are referring to the most people or the most countries.

The language spoken by the most people: Mandarin Chinese
The language spoken in the most countries: English

The world's top 20 languages http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/COMMUNICATIONS/TopLanguages.html

What are the world's most widely spoken languages?
http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
Click to expand...

I'd want to see Mr. Weber's point system before I concede that English is the top "Most Influential Language in the World." Without seeing how his "weighing system" it's all just a bunch of numbers thrown around to give the English language false legitimacy.

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:
(number of points given in parentheses)

1. English (37)
2. French (23)
3. Spanish (20)
4. Russian (16)
5. Arabic (14)
6. Chinese (13)
7. German (12)
8. Japanese (10)
9. Portuguese (10)
10. Hindi/Urdu (9)
Click to expand...

The method of weighing that I found certainly puts English in a favorable light. All statistics can be massaged to get the results you want.

The method of deciding what a "fringe" language is VERY subjective. (check page 4 of the article in the below link). There's no scientific way to measure that criteria of "fringe" language. A core countries criteria, certainly, you have to be counted as an official language or full legal status. You can also make a case for a majority of the population speaks it. I have a hard time scientifically finding out how a "usually tiny but significantly influential" language can be measured fairly.

http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm
Each field is weighted in importance reflected in the maximum number of points that could be assigned to individual languages for that field. The six fields chosen are

1. Number of primary speakers: max. 4 points
2. Number of secondary speakers: max. 6 points
5. Economic power of countries using the language: max. 8 points
4. Number of major areas of human acitivity in which the language is important: max. 8 points
3. Number and population of countries using the language: max. 7 points
6. Socio-literary prestige of the language: max. 4 points (plus an additional point for being an official UN language)

Twenty major languages were then assigned a number of points in each field and the points added together and the top ten were ranked accordingly. C'est tout, as the French would say. No advanced maths or quantum physics required. Assigning points in this way inevitably involves a certain degree of arbitrariness. To check the robustness of the ranking I have tested the point system to destruction with reassuring results: it would have needed obviously absurd new valuations to affect the ranking of the top ten languages given in Fig. 2. above. The only exception was Portuguese and Japanese which came in with the same numbers of points. I have have given Japanese priority because of its relatively stronger economic power. However, if Brazil continues its present economic expansion, the two languages will soon have to be ranked together or even reverse position.
Click to expand...
 
Buckdodgers said:
Thats the Problem,,When your deaf if you cant talk people might not serve you.But if youre deaf and can talk try to speak what you want in english then youll get good service.My advice to deaf people who cant talk have a speaking friend to order for you.
Click to expand...

You mean the people with English spoken-language who can not read the English language? How did they fill the applications for the opening positions in USA?
 
Back
Top