“Speak English, Boy!” The State of the Tongue of the State

Instead of arguing with Rep. Terrill and his emboldened plans to enact legislation making English the official language of Oklahoma, let’s consider why that would actually be a good thing for the state. If English were to be the official language, then let some of us get to work on what are sure to be overlooked consequences of the legislation’s details.


The proposed legislation will do wonders to enhance the view of our young state as the home on the range for all linguists and English majors, who would race to join other right thinkers at our borders to stake claim to their area of specialty. Let some structure and diagram the committees necessary to decide the finer points of usage, grammar, and what actually constitutes the English language. Specialists should be responsible for chairing the sub-committees, including a permanently temporary sub-committee to review oxymoronic usage and a new committee for neologisms. This should all flow well in theory, but some are sure to be critical. Some specialists would surely clamor to review the committees’ reviews, and pose questions of what is meant [or not] by each detail. As those committees draft, re-draft, review and respond, I would like to start the conversation as to what might actually constitute breaking the law:


If English is the official language, then proper usage must be legal; and finally, to the relief of all thoughtful, considerate users thereof, improper usage-illegal. Fines at a minimum, but tickets for use of the reflexive pronoun in the nominative. Misdemeanors for nominative objects of prepositions. Jail time for split infinitives; community alerts for thinking a preposition is something to end a sentence with. That might all seem pedantic and esoteric-nay, harsh—to anyone without a high school degree. To them, such rules will be seen only as coercive legislation, as nothing more than sin tax.


But there is room for all to take part in citizen’s arrests of those who harbor and abet the illegal use of English. “Dude, I can’t understand you-you’re going to jail!” And off the air with those radio stations that promote the lazy or sloppy use of English. Rap, country, unintelligible indie rock- all off the airwaves. Those visitors driving through our state, (who, surely out of respect for our laws, would stay mutely in their cars until well beyond the borders), will hear nothing aired but right-sounding speech.


But the harshest penalties should be in place for what Rep. Terill and others ought to consider the most egregious crimes against English, its systematic and subversive semantic deployment by certain segments of the population. I leave that, however, for we the people to decide what that means.