The presidential candidates answer pressing questions about the English language and its unfavorable balance of trade.
Special to the Web of Language
If you’ve been following the presidential debates in this rough-and-tumble primary season, you’ve heard the major candidates state their positions on immigration, health care, national security, and the economy. But there’s one important question that all the candidates have ducked: what should we be doing about the English language? If the number of people trying to learn it around the world is any indicator, English is the most popular language ever. And yet, there’s the distressing fact that every year, English imports many more words from foreign countries than it exports. This unfavorable balance of linguistic trade has resulted in a huge inflation of the English vocabulary, but at what cost to the language of the average American?
The Web of Language’s team of investigative journalists assembled all the candidates for a virtual debate on the English language, and we asked them to comment on these issues. Their comments were broadcast over the local cable access channel. What follows is a transcript of their remarks.
WOL: Welcome, all, to this special 2016 primary edition of the Web of Language, coming to you live from Champaign, Illinois. Just before we went on the air, the candidates drew lots to determine the order of presentation, and we begin with remarks by Secretary Clinton, candidate for the Democratic nomination, who has elected to speak first.
Hillary Clinton: Thank you, and thank all of you for coming here tonight. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are a quarter of a million English words. Coming from Park Ridge, Illinois, I grew up in a family that always had words, there were words all around me, all the time. I have tried to make good use of each and every one of these words, because when you go to the best schools and you hold important jobs, you need words all the time. So yes, I benefited greatly from all those English words.
I have to admit, when I got to Arkansas with Bill, there weren’t that many words there. So even though I always had all the words I needed, I’ve seen what it’s like when people don’t have enough words to last to the end of the month. But when he was governor, Bill put me in charge of finding more words for Arkansas. And yes, some of them were foreign words, but it was all above board, we were completely exonerated in the investigation, and in the end, we were able to do for the Arkansas vocabulary what I promise I will do for the American vocabulary, which is to grow the vocabulary at a rate that will mean more words for every American. Because English is a sustainable natural resource, it’s the language of the future.
You know, Bill, when he was president, signed NAFTA, and now with the TPP, it means not only will we have access to more words from abroad, but we'll be exporting more of our own words. These words that come here from other countries, I might add, they are words that don’t compete with words at home. These are words we need and we have no American equivalent, like shumai or cisgender. These words do work that no English words are willing to do.
And when I’m president I promise that we’ll reverse that balance of trade, send more of our words abroad, not just words like OK and dude, which are words that symbolize America’s fundamental values, but also words like outsource and call center, which are so important to the international economy. English is in a better position now than ever because, let’s face it, everybody all over the world hates the American government. We saw that in Libya, never mind that time when I came under fire from real guns in Bosnia, a country where there is a drastic shortage of vowels, but they loooove American words there, and of course rock and roll music.
People just love the American language, any word at all, send it abroad, somebody will buy it. And so on the first day of my presidency I will establish a commission to take all the words we generate, for example, on our private email servers, and we will reverse the vocabulary trade deficit—maybe not all at once, maybe it will take four years, though I’m hoping it will take eight. Our words are our bonds, and believe me, I will increase the interest rate on those bonds, because I’m not beholdin’ to Wall Street, and they’re gonna do what I tell them to do, and our words will be worth more than ever on the international market.
WOL: Thank you, Secretary Clinton. Senator Sanders, it’s—
Bernie Sanders: Now there I have to disagree with you, Secretary Clinton, because I’m just tired of hearing about those emails whatever language they were in, I mean, really, the American people are tired of hearing that.
Now, as I see it, the problem with the English language, in this country, Mme. Secretary, isn’t foreign competition, it’s Wall Street! The big banks control the language, they’ve got their greedy fingers in our dictionaries, their fingers are in our pocket dictionaries. That Oxford English Dictionary, by the way, is really really big, and I say, no dictionary is too big to fail. No dictionary. They’ve really got us by the throat, the big dictionary makers, I mean literally, because in our throats, that’s where our language comes from, and the brokers and the financial institutions want to squeeze our throats and take our words and what do they give us back? Bupkis, that’s what.
That’s a Polish word, by the way, bupkis, but it’s an example of a word immigrants brought to this country, it’s not a word we built here, American workers didn’t build bupkis. I’m telling you, when my parents, who were Polish immigrants, they came to this country people tried to tell them, “No, you can’t have our words. Use your own words.” Well, that’s because they didn’t want us to have their words because frankly, back then we were people of color. A very pale color, yes, but that’s how it was back then.
But my parents, they wouldn’t take “No” for an answer and they worked hard for each and every word they got. They worked hard, they scrimped and saved, for bupkis. That’s why words are so important to me. Not dollar-and-a-half words, not Wall Street words, just ordinary two-bit everyday words.
And I want to take those words back from the one percenters and redistribute them and if there’s a surplus, then yes, I think we can ship those extra words abroad, just give them to people abroad who need those words, like Lend Lease, maybe you remember? We need to take care of our words at home, our veteran words, we can’t neglect them. But first we have get everybody at home to have enough words, not just the words they need for day-to-day survival, but a nest egg of words they can count on later in life, maybe when their minds start to go and they have trouble thinking of a word.
That’s why I want to set up a kind of MediWord program that people can draw on—a single-payer dictionary, if you will, you can quote me on that, because words are what we democratic socialists think of as our stock in trade. I mean, can you actually imagine me without words? Me, speechless? Right? I mean, even my hands are speaking while I’m speaking, and when I’m not speaking too, like this. So I want every American to have access to these words any time, anywhere. Not just on Wall Street. Let’s break up those giant word trusts, let’s forget this “English is too big to fail” and give people the words they need, the words they worked so hard for.
On my first day as president I will appoint a Word Tsar and his job—and I say his, not to be sexist but because his is a gender-neutral word here, just look in the dictionary—his job will be to enforce my policy, which is, “from each, according to his vocabulary, to each, according to his context,” that’s my principle of how to divide our words fairly.
Or “her job,” it could be her, too, because, you know my supporters, some of them call themselves BernieBros, but they’re women too, because bro is a gender-neutral term, and some of them are also people of color—did I mention I was arrested at a civil rights demonstration when I was a student at the University of Chicago? Maybe I should have gotten arrested in the South, maybe I should have moved to Arkansas, maybe I’d be getting more minority votes if I had done that, but I was at the University of Chicago back then and well, that’s where I got arrested in a civil rights demonstration because I wanted to help poor people get the same access to words that I enjoyed. Because everybody knows there are not enough words in the ghetto, where these people live, right next door to the University of Chicago. There’s a richness of words, there, on the campus, and then, right across the street, poverty, broken bottles, broken words in the street, violence, hunger, all because people there don’t have enough words. And I’m bringing words to the ghetto, English words, that is my plan, and it’s very, very affordable, I’ve got a spreadsheet here if you want to see the numbers. . .
WOL: Thank you, Senator Sanders. And now we’ll move on to the other side of the aisle, as it were, to Senator Cruz, who is a candidate for the Republican nomination.
Ted Cruz: The English language has become polluted with foreign words, I think Senator Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have demonstrated that right here, tonight. And I think we need to establish a vocabulary reform policy to keep out foreign words, and to make sure that the very few words we do let into English, we let them in legally, and if they’re not here legally, then we send them back. That’s it, we just send them back.
Plenty of words came into English legally. All those French words, back then, I think it was the middle ages, it was a dark time, but French words came into English when the Normans migrated into England, in fact they owned a lot of England so it was all legal, all fine for them to bring their words with them, and those words helped England become a big, powerful country back then.
It’s OK for rich people to bring their words with them when they come here, too, because they have visas and travel documents and platinum Master Cards. What we don’t need are words that swim ashore illegally on rafts, from places like Cuba, where they speak Spanish. I mean, French, now that’s a classy lingo. But Spanish, not so much. I don’t speak Spanish—I mean, I went to Princeton, right? Who speaks Spanish there? The cafeteria staff? I was a poor kid from Texas, but I spoke English with the best of them at Princeton.
But it’s time to start taking pride in our own English words and saying, we don’t need words from Mexico, or South America, or even from Cuba where they are the words of a tyrant, a godless Communist dictator. I mean, Marco Rubio made fun of me because I don’t speak Spanish, but look where he is and look where I am, right? I mean, English is the language of the Bible. If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it’s good enough for me.
So I’d actually be in favor of carpet bombing all those foreign words in English, especially the Spanish ones. You know, my name may be Cruz but did I mention, I don’t speak Spanish? I can’t even read the menu at the Taco Bell. Haha. But seriously, I would set up a commission my first day as president that would find all these foreign words in English and lock them away, put them in special dictionaries of foreign words, there’s no place for them in, what was it, the Oxford English Dictionary? Let’s keep those foreign words in Guantanamo, they’re too dangerous let loose in America. No one wants them here.
And I think we can get along just swell without any words from abroad. We don’t need words like vocabulary, for example, we could just use word hoard which is a good native word for the same thing, a “like word,” it is, because we don’t need words like synonym when we can just say like word, or antonym, when we can say unlike word. The Democrat Party want all these foreign words, like brie and chablis, but honest, hard-working Americans eat American cheese and we drink Coors, even if those snob Democrat elites insist on calling American cheese “cheese food,” like there was something wrong with food? Or that Coors isn’t actually beer but pale-colored bubbly rodent urinated waste water. Because real Americans, real Republican Americans, don’t need food labels, we don’t care what’s in the stuff we eat or drink so long as it’s made here in the U. S. of A., that’s real enough for us. I would have word patrols in immigrant neighborhoods making sure everybody was speaking English, and anybody who wasn’t I’d put them on a special watch list and after a second offense, well, out they go, and . . . .
WOL: Thank you, Senator, your time is up, and now we go to Mr. Trump—
John Kasich: Excuse me, my hand’s been up for five minutes, I think it’s really my turn now?
WOL: Oh, yes, sorry, go ahead, Governor, I didn’t notice you were there—
John Kasich: I just want to say that I am a very religious man and I believe in faith-based grammar and in Ohio we have very clear guidelines on using English and not borrowed, foreign words. People in Ohio have to pay a penalty if they want to use foreign words when they’re speaking English, a kind of excise tax, like a tax on luxury goods, so you’ll find more and more people in Ohio using real English, native English words not just because they are more economically competitive but because they just do the job, I mean they really do. You say a foreign word in Ohio, you have to put a quarter in the coffee can. Plus if you use foreign words when you talk to me, I get really, really testy. I’m a good guy, I try to be real pleasant and all. I’m smiling now, to show you how pleasant and important I really am. Just don’t cross me and use a foreign word when a native word will do. And when I’m president, because the polls say even though I haven’t won any state but my own, I’m the best-positioned Republican to beat the Green Party candidate. . . .
Donald Trump: I think I’ve heard just about enough from these clowns, yes I’m talking about you, John, and Bernie, and the secretary over there—I mean, if she’s a secretary, shouldn’t she just be taking notes?—she’s a Madame Secretary, even, so shouldn’t she be doing other things besides taking notes, I don’t know, madam things?
Now, those foreign words, they are bad words, they’re really bad. I hate those words. Really, really bad foreign words. I like English words. Like Drumpf, which is German. I don’t like that. I like Trump, which is English. No, not English words, I like American words. I don’t need the Oxford English Dictionary, I need the Trump American Dictionary. Because Trump is a word made in America, like Trump Dictionaries, they are the best. And I want to make the English language great again. Here in America, where English was born.
I like American words, because words mean business. You can’t have business without words. It’s why we have the First Amendment, it guarantees every American the right to use words. It’s just like the Second Amendment, only for words, not guns, and it comes first, not second. Did you ever notice that? That the First Amendment comes first? That law says, government can’t take away your words. You’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead, fingers. And those might be some big words, big words, not just four-letter words, because I have pretty large fingers. Never got any complaints. No complaints, no.
And I use foreign words, imported words, yeah I use them because I’m a businessman and I use them to beat the crap out of the competition. Because they’re using them too, and if I didn’t use them they’d beat the crap out of me, and I won’t allow that. I mean, I beat them with English words, Russian words, Chinese words, words in Hindu, whatever, they don’t know what hit them. I would like to punch them right in the face sometimes, with those big words, pretty big words. Nobody’s complained, folks, nobody.
But really, I shouldn’t be allowed to use those foreign words. I use them because I can, because the law says I can use borrowed words. But really, I’m going to change that law, and I’m not saying if I’m elected, because there’s no if. I may already be president, I don’t know, maybe it’s true, I read it on the internet that I’m already president, and there’ll be riots if I’m not—and I’m changing that law right away so all those borrowed words? they’re going right back to China. And I’m making China pay the interest on those borrowed words. No way is America paying that interest, no way. I use foreign words, and I’m the best person to know how to return them. Because I kept the receipt.
So here’s what I’m doing, I’m building a 50 foot wall around Spanish, and I’m deporting all those Chinese words, those cheap words, words subsidized by the government of China, like dim sum and stuff, I’m gonna take those words and stuff ’em right back down Mao Tse-Tung’s throat. What? Oh, he’s not? When did that happen?
OK, I’m putting those words where the chop sticks don’t go, if you know what I mean. And speaking of that, you know Hillary, she went to all these great schools, higher education, she doesn’t even know the meaning of is. I mean, tell me, what do you think the meaning of is is? Don’t they teach that in law school? See, she doesn’t know. Just like a woman. Women like me, did I ever mention that? I don’t know if she knows, really, Hillary, what is means, but maybe it’s true, I think I read that in the Facebook. I have lots of followers on social media, so if I use only American words, they will use only American words too. And my words are really pretty big. No one’s ever complained about the size of my words.
And my supporters, maybe they beat up some people who use words that aren’t from America. I don’t know. I don’t tell them to do that. Those foreign people are using little words, small words. You know what they say? About small words? But I’m going to buy them dictionaries, that’s what I’ll do. When I’m president, I’m buying everybody an American dictionary and we’ll all be speaking the same words then. I tell you, I will get a great deal on a dictionary and everybody will have this dictionary and we won’t need a bible or a law book or terrorists or anything, because we will have a dictionary. The Trump Dictionary of American, I will print it and I will sell it. I will give you a deal, and I will sell it to all the school children so they will know the words. I will sell it to those Chinese and I’ll have them speaking from that Trump American Dictionary because we’re making our own words here. I’m making American words for Americans, right here. And when I’m president, I will sell American books to Americans, and I will make a great profit.
So if the Chinese don’t take back their words, eat their words, I’m sending in the Special Forces and the Seals and that will be the end of the Chinese. Except for the Chinese food, of course. The dim sum, we have to keep the dim sum. I like the little shrimp things, you know? Not the sissy eggplant, but I like the sweet balls with the sesame seeds on the outside? You know those? We could get some of those later, OK? After we’re done? But not the sissy eggplant, that’s really, really bad, That’s girlie stuff, maybe, not for me. Marco, little Marco, he likes the eggplant, with the garlic, right? And you know, I’m such a great guy, I could get him a great deal on that eggplant. He’s not going to be my vice president, by the way, and it’s because he speaks Spanish, I don’t want those borrowed words, loser words, because we’re gonna make English great again, right here at home, no Spanish at all, no more loser words. But I could use a foreign word, I could use it right in the middle of Fifth Avenue, they’re still gonna vote for me. I’m winning this thing. I don’t know if that’s true or not. All I know, I read it on the internet.
WOL: And there you have it for this evening, the candidates speaking their minds, sometimes pretty frankly, about the state of the English language. This special primary 2016 edition of the Web of Language has been brought to you in part thanks to a grant from the League of Women Lexicographers, who ask you to remember that he is not a gender-neutral word, and that an informed electorate is an electorate that knows what words like “is” mean.
