Comments on: It’s easy to be a critic, when English is your first language.

By: Golden Silence

Golden Silence — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:27:00 +0000

I cannot stand typos either and I feel I am constantly finding them. I tend to find a lot of them in restaurants (or any business) run by non-native English speakers. Reading your piece has made me think more about my actions and realize I need to stop being so judgmental. They are trying to make a business thrive and are bringing something back to the community. Menu typos have no bearing on how the food will taste. And I need to look at it this way—I know good and well if I were in a foreign country where the language wasn’t my first, my communication skills wouldn’t be perfect either.

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By: Alien

Alien — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:42:00 +0000

This post strikes a nerve in a white foreigner who’s lived here for 30 years, pays taxes and employs Americans. Being white allows me to be mistaken occasionally as an American which may be good or bad, depending on the situation. Accent and handwriting, or odd grammar, gestures and typos, make me an alien. Turning to American citizenship does not wipe out the foreignness which is probably true across the color spectrum. The daughter who is American is perceived in her environment differently from the parents in theirs. The parent may misunderstand the child’s purely American gesture — a friendly one as an evil one. Lots of nuances in life. The perceptive observations in the post don’t look PC to me.

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By: Saheli Datta

Saheli Datta — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:52:00 +0000

I actually had to read your mother’s note about 10 times before I could figure out what could possibly be wrong with it. Reading it aloud did not help at all! Then I had to laugh, because I make the same mistake all the time. (No spelling bee champ I, native & Latin enthusiast that I am.) Your reply to Liz exactly highlighted the issue: with our native accent, we usually get a pass.

Part of the conundrum in even highlighting the fear you have about your mother’s mistake is that to many who won’t fault her for it, it seems like an absurd worry, because they would never to jump to any conclusions–and they’ve much more rarely , possibly never, had to experience someone jumping to such conclusions about them or theirs. But as you told Liz, of course, some people may ‘assume something totally different’. You and I know, from our lived experience, that every now and then some people do make such assumptions. After a lifetime encountering people who do jump to conclusions, and enduring the ensuing nasty judgements, it’s easy to get pretty stressed out about it, and yet how to ask the first group of people to understand what that’s like? How to request the empathetic leap to less snark and more warmth? It’s difficult, especially when everyone has the stock response ready. “How very PC of you” has got to be the most unoriginal, common, mindless comment on a post about race, ethnicity and immigration. Basically a robot could say that about any attempt to examine identity and empathy. ‘Don’t be PC’ is essentially shorthand for, ‘don’t make me question my ability to empathetically shift perspective or lack thereof.’

But I know what you mean about the competing feelings: menu mispellings can be really funny and also irritating, b/c proofreading seems like such an obvious step, and yet there’s something also very sad about making fun of them and the social isolation they seem to indicate. And yet, it feels so patronizing to offer help. Actually, though, it’s probably a business opportunity: a consultation service aimed specifically at ESL and immigrant restauranteurs, providing specific tips on integrating regional dining conventions with your own unique offerings. Surely there’s an entrepreneurial cuisine-oriented polyglot (get it?) out there who wants to create some jobs?

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:04:00 +0000

That’s a fair point, Liz. Thank you. Still, your comment reminds me that even the ability to make mistakes without being judged harshly for them is a type of privilege; if I scrawl something hastily and misspell it, people probably wouldn’t care. If my Mother, with her accent does it, people may assume something totally different.

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:52:00 +0000

I’m actually not very P.C., despite having a job where it is my privilege to unpack issues like race and class in a fair and sensitive fashion.

If you’re referring to my moment of menu-inspired immigrant solidarity, it was motivated by compassion vs. any type of “correctness”. Thank you for commenting!

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By: fred

fred — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:18:00 +0000

how very pc of you.

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By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:59:00 +0000

Relax, Anna. Been on any forums lately? Google Answers? YouTube?
Your mother’s note was way above average compared to them.

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