John's Blog

Although it seems like any combinations of letters that get you to some phonetic representation of what you are trying to say is the acceptable standard, there's much to be said for the benefits of a good spell-checker. If you are brave enough, feel free to test your spelling skills with English Banana.com's Reely Gud Speeling Test! Plenty of other fun and educational material there as well.

And speaking of learning English, please excuse this odd segueway, but it reminds me of an incident I witnessed the other evening. I was eating in one of my favorite Chinese restaurants and was seated close enough to the front to see the takeout counter. Some douchebag comes in to pick-up his order wearing a t-shirt with the slogan "Welcome to America: Now Speak English!" on the front. Apparently, he left his white hood at home but his message of bigotry came through loud and clear. The woman at the counter was a much better sport about it than I would have been, engaging him with pleasant banter while they got his order rung up. As he was leaving, I heard her say "By the way, I DO speak English". A classier response that I would have offered.

And as long as we are talking about T-shirts that are sure to offend, I'd much prefer this one that expresses a popular sentiment about current events in Iraq.

Tags: pop-culture, politics, pointless rambling