Whoo, we made BBC. here And here's a story about the current mayor. Relating to the Geno's story (nasty steaks, by the way - it's the tourist spot), I've seen a sticker at one place that read "This is America, order in any language that you like"
In England, you can order in any language you like, but if you want to get served, you'd better choose English, because most of us are sadly monolingual. What was the nature of the immigration bill in question?
I must protest, there are certain parts of London where ordering in English is a serious handicap, I know of at least one street full of restaurants with hardly any english waiters at all ! :biggrin:
The bill was a plan to tighten border security, but give a way for the current 'undocumented workers' to become legal, and eventually citizens. Here's an article about it. The funny thing is (about Geno's), the United States does not even have an official language. Some of my friends and I were talking about this last night over mojitos and Scategories. We were wondering, how many people actually tried to order by saying: "Filete con queso en pan de Amorosa. Cheez whiz y no cebollas por favor", versus how many people just had 'harsh' accents.
I guess that's the salient point here. In a country with an official language, I think that you should expect to have to use that language. On the other hand, even if there was no official language, you'd need to order from a vendor in the language he speaks. Otherwise, no cheese whiz.
Iceland has an official language,but ofcourse we have immigrants who don't speak it.But I have to say,there's not as much a language problem as I've witnessed in other countries I've lived in. We are obliged,ordered,made to,punished by, learning bloody Danish in school for years,just because they used to "own" us once. I'd have given anything to have been able to get out of that.
