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Joe's Cafe, 24/7 pit stop for ESL learners and teachers | July 2011
Egg's off, bacon's off, bread's off, tea's off. English is on though.
God help us if this is how our think tanks thinkThe extract below appeared in The Telegraph today. The Telegraph is a daily British newspaper of supposedly high reputation. The inability of its writers and editors to write English, demonstrated below, will cast doubt on that reputation. 
The author of the above article is Dr David G Green, who is described as “director of the think tank Civitas”. I have always held think tanks in the lowest regard, and the outrageous and woolly thinking displayed in this article would seem to give weight to my feelings.
In this sentence the pronoun “it” refers back to “The inability to speak a host country’s language”. The writer is therefore saying that “the inability to speak a host country’s language is a very reasonable requirement of any immigrant.” What he means to say (however absurdly) is that ”the ability to speak a host country’s language is a very reasonable requirement of any immigrant.” This would be comic if this display of bad writing were not at the start of so arrogant and racist an article preaching the necessity for immigrants to Britain to speak English. Learners of English may take heart from the fact that some quarters of the British and American press, radio and television are full of examples of poor English. This is particularly true of the BBC and CNN, but it appears that the shortcoming is spreading to media of hitherto higher repute. Joe | Friday, July 29th, 2011 | Filed under Rants
12 Responses to “God help us if this is how our think tanks think”Leave a Comment |  Personal blog of Josef Essberger, EnglishClub founder Browse by Category |
30th July 2011 at 12:53 pm
He must stop beating arond the bush!.
Had speaking English made some divisions or the inability to accept the growing numbers of immigrants?.
Mr.Josef.Have you said he’s a director of the think tank Civitas? ,that’s the break!.
31st July 2011 at 12:04 pm
In your observation, both ways describes the racism ability, isn´t it?
31st July 2011 at 2:17 pm
Dear Josef,
I think that since he is a racist, he means to reinforce devisions via emphasizing on requiring “the inability to speak english”
regards
31st July 2011 at 5:45 pm
well i believe that there’s a lot differences here in the world even if you are from England or Usa though.
here we’d many people that they must have the right job but the problems still that ain’t speaking english.
1st August 2011 at 4:46 am
lol thank you, joe! I couldn’t agree more!
6th September 2011 at 1:02 pm
I am trying to improve my English language.I really do not know what to say.
23rd September 2011 at 8:10 am
The ability to speak English on entering England is a very selective process. Asians MUST be able to speak (and understand) English, but other people from the EU do not have this requirement. There are too many people in the U.K. who don’t have a clue about English! Many of them work in the airports! Very selective isn’t it?
7th November 2011 at 7:24 am
I maintain that immigrants should have the ability to speak a host country’s language.
I love multiculture. It spurs me to travel abroad. That’s so wonderful to sample different things all over the world. I find some immigrants lose a chance to enjoy it because they can’t speak the host country’s language. They stay all the time at their community where people use their native language to communicate each other and never hang around out of the community. How can they be acquainted with local culture?
Besides, integration is important for the host country’s government and sharing the same language is the necessary means. Whenever policies which administration wants the nationals to obey are announced, a united language seems very significant. Only after people know and understand the policy, they can follow it.
22nd November 2011 at 1:18 pm
The immigrants perhaps speak better English than they do) haha
23rd November 2011 at 4:46 am
of course immigrants should know host country’s language like in Britain you should know English primarily because of proper communication; you have to understand other people….how can you? If you don’t know their language?
29th November 2011 at 4:38 am
So, the idea seems to be that if I decided to move to Germany(because immigration is an act of volition)then, I don’t have to speak German because most Germans don’t speak it well. Can you apply that concept to any country in the Middle
East and call them racists too?
29th November 2011 at 4:43 am
Second, I can’t understand why people emigrate, leaving their place of birth and culture, move to another country and criticize it? Stay in yours, at least it would be less controversial.
English is just one of the languages that I speak. I don’t speak any Semitic languages nor have I the intention to learn it, but if I decided to move to one of those countries, I certainly would learn that language, immediately.