Chinglish

Here’s a little tidbit from this month’s Wired:

“By 2020, native English speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca.”

Ah, this warms my heart. I never was much for foreign language. Never really had the patience to put my mind to something so, uh, foreign. My grades the second semester of college looked something like this:

American Lit Survey: A
Literary Criticism: A
19th Century British Novel: B
Introduction to Physics: A
Spanish 3.0: F

As an excuse, I always copped to some sort of imbecilism whenever the topic came up. My father pronounced my failure to achieve in the southern tongue an “anomaly” and left it at that. Unfortunately, I was mostly just lazy. I was well aware of the difference between a gerund an infinitive. I had a fondness for the culture, cuisine, and charisma of my chicano friends. I just didn’t try.

Now, thanks to trends beyond my control, I may not have to. Funny how such an awkward little language is taking over. Lucky me.