[Ilugc] Bill Gates & English
- From: siva@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sivasankar Chander)
- Date: Sun Aug 8 18:19:32 2004
"Bill Gates, on his path to billions, has done more for English society than
any Tamil has for Tamil society, this century"
Lots of stuff deleted...
Can we safely say that the one person most responsible for all of above,
whether he intended to or not is Bill Gates?
No, Bill Gates isn't responsible for the dominance of English - it was
already the dominant language before he was born. It became dominant because
of the longstanding mercantile and maritime tradition of England. You may
want to read some history first. A good start would be "History of the
English Speaking People" in 5 volumes by Winston Churchill. It covers the
period between 55 BC and today. Oh, I forgot, it's written in English.
If I had to name one person in the last 2000 years who was responsible for
the dominance of English today, it would have to be somebody who wasn't
English and never spoke a word of English: Queen Isabella of Portugal,
patroness of Christopher Columbus. The good queen was very learned, spoke
many languages fluently (but not English), took many steps to provide
equality in rights to all her subjects (irrespective of sex, race or
birth), was frugal to the point of mending her husband, the King's, clothes
herself - repairing one pair of pants no less than seven times, rather
than discarding it. Nevertheless, when presented with an unknown sailor
from Genoa who requested three ships to be fitted and provisioned for
a voyage to discover a continent that very few actually believed to exist,
the good Queen lost no time in showering her generosity on him.
I think there's a lot more to be learned from Isabella's deeds than
from Billy boy at Redmond. Coita Gatego, as I always say: Bill Gates
must be screwed.
-Siva
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