Sorry. After a long, long break following my dissertation deadline, I’m back and I’m pissed off.
I must have missed the memo.
Since when was the ability to speak English a marker of intelligence? Since when was it necessary for one to measure themselves against your bullshit standard of superiority in order to be validated? In my opinion, Germans do everything better, and Asians are some of the most driven people I’ve ever come across. So why don’t we measure intelligence based on how well we can speak German, or Korean?
‘Because English is an international language’, I hear you cry. SO????
Say it with me: YOUR ABILITY TO SPEAK ENGLISH SHOWS NOTHING EXCEPT YOUR ABILITY TO SPEAK ENGLISH!!!! LITERALLY JUST THAT!!! Not your intelligence, not your character, not your worth, literally nothing else!!!!! And then say it louder for the uncultured folk at the back.
English is not pre-wired into our brains. You have to learn it. You, a native English speaker, had to learn it. Whilst it may be hard for you to realise, those of you who say ‘lol you can’t even speak English properly’ were pushed out of the vagina screaming and crapping yourself and not being able to speak a damn word of anything until your fed-up mother began cursing around you and your first word was ‘shit’. And then you went on the rest of your life being able to speak English, only English, and you even suck at that. Do you even know how to use a semicolon? Do you know in which situations you should use ‘who’ and ‘whom’? Sit down.
Whilst many important historical figures have been English speakers, there are also countless figures who were not. Karl Benz was German. Leonardo Da Vinci was Italian. Louis Braille was French. Marie Curie was Polish. And so on (the words of Zizek, a Slovenian). Not only did they manage to change the world, they didn’t have to be native English speakers to do it. Thus, proving the wild notion that you don’t have to speak English to have a brain. You, on the other hand, escaped the womb a bawling bloody mess only to grow up and have ‘you cant even speak English bruv’ as your only line of defence against someone who is speaking your language as a second, third, or fourth language with imperfect grammar. You, o superior English speaker, have no claim to anything except the fact that you can speak English.
Well done. What a good brain you have.