Why It`s Important to Understand English from Planck's Constant

Photo Credit: Vietnamnet

I have posted once before why it's important to learn to speak English in America. Here's another:

When I got back from Toronto last month I had some Canadian dollars [see my post on Canada's efforts to combat terrorism] I needed to exchange, so I went to the currency exchange window at my local bank. Short line. Just one guy in front of me, an Asian guy who was trying to exchange yen for dollars and boy was he a little irritated!

He asked the teller, "Why it change?? Yestoday, I get two huna dolla fo yen. Today I get huna eighty?? Why it change?"

The teller shrugged her shoulders and said, "Fluctuations".

"What?" the Asian asked.

The teller replied very slowly "fluc-u-ations"

The Asian guy said, "Fluc you white people too!"

[from an Internet email]

If you are wondering what the photo of the pretty girl has to do with Yen, she is Vietnamese Model Duong Yen Ngoc, and if I were not a happily married man, I would certainly have a Yen for her, although at my age it would require a boatload of Yen to get her to yin my yang.

While we are on the subject of Vietnam:

VietNamNet Bridge, 5 Dec 2006, Hotels light up Christmas Trees
Hotels in downtown Ho Chi Minh City last Friday celebrated the "Lighting Christmas Tree" ceremony to kick off the year-end festive season of Christmas and New Year.

The New World Hotel started its traditional Christmas tree lighting in the company of guests and children gathered at the lobby, where the tree stands. After a short opening speech, Oliver Kahf, the hotel's newly appointed general manager, invited all the children to the switch, and then they started a countdown to turn on the lights. Christmas songs accompanied the ceremony.

"Christmas" Trees in a Godless, communist country. Meanwhile, here in America, in the land of the Free, in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, we have the "Holiday" Tree. Why are Christians more free to celebrate their holidays in Vietnam than in America?

NY Daily News, 'Holiday' tag for Yule log stumps pol
It looks like a Christmas tree. It smells like a Christmas tree. But a 17-foot-high Brooklyn evergreen is being called a "holiday tree" - much to the chagrin of one politician.
State Sen. Marty Golden is blasting a decision by a local group to erect a generic "holiday tree," minus the "Christmas," in his Bay Ridge neighborhood.

"A Menorah lighting is a Menorah lighting and Kwanzaa is Kwanzaa, but this is a Christmas tree," charged Golden, an Irish-Catholic Republican.
...
The holiday jeer began Nov. 28 after hundreds gathered at the city-owned Shore Road Gardens park for a tree-lighting ceremony - complete with a Santa Claus and signs announcing the "Holiday Tree" lighting.

Shore Road Garden Council Vice President Linda Allegretti said her group considered the multiethnic neighborhood's Jewish and Islamic communities when they installed the tree, which could remain standing through Jan. 20, the start of the Islamic new year.

"I'm aware of his opinion on this, but we're trying to include all the religions because we're trying to be inclusive," said Allegretti. "It is a Christmas celebration that we're having, but we're trying to include everybody."

"It is a Christmas celebration that we're having, but we're trying to include everybody." What the hell does that mean? I've always felt included when they light the CHRISTMAS Tree in my town even though I am not Christian. Jews have been in America for hundreds of years and there was never a problem with Christmas Trees. Now we have a few million Muslims in this country and all of a sudden liberal idiots do not want to offend "other" religions.

Listen everybody, if this keeps up we will soon have the Green Parade instead of Saint Patrick's Day Parade, no sense insulting Albanians or Uzbeks, "let's make it inclusive, we can't exclude anyone, boo hoo." I am not Irish but I like to attend St Patty's Day Parades - I do not feel excluded, insulted, slighted, persecuted, hated, reviled or anything else. Why can't all of you just get a life and celebrate whatever you want. You want to celebrate World Toilet Day? Go ahead, you'll get no crap from me, but leave my holidays alone, you busybody, bleeding heart, oversensitive, offended, liberal idiot bastards!

When right wing groups do not like what they see on cable, liberals tell them not to look at that channel, to mind their own business. I agree. So here's my advice to those who are offended by Christmas: Don't look. Mind your own business.