The list is truly international, and although its members use English as its "linguaMy first response is to apologize to everyone on the list for my knowing only one language. I studied German and French in college and graduate school, dated my conversational German instructor from Vienna, and had to pass tests on Scientific German and French to receive my doctorate. Not having had any occasion at all to practice my limited competencies in these marvelous languages, over the many years since this early exposure, my vocabularies have diminished to nearly nothing. I marvel at the people I have met in Europe who converse freely in several languages, and envy the many benefits this provides them.
franca" <ouch>, it would be quite unfair to conduct a competition solely in that language.
I'm very much against the homogenization of varied cultures, and languages, around the world, as commerce becomes ever more global in nature. Too little effort is being expended to save and protect the rich cultures and varied ways of living around the world, which seem to be in the path of the steam-roller of globalization.
The situation is not unlike the terrible atrocities to the aboriginal natives of my own country, the first true Americans, who have suffered terrible genocide and ecocide at the hands of my government and the commerce which continues to drive much government action against these people.
However, I have had to accept the cold hard reality that English-speaking whites, myself and my ancestors included, have overtaken and dominated the continent, as a fait accompli, and all my crying and apologies will not change what has already happened. (There may be a sort of poetic justice addendum to this story. Hispanic immigration proceeds apace in the U.S., due to very liberal immigration laws, and spanish is becoming the language of choice in many regions of the country, even some small towns in the south. There's a real possibility that English will become a minority language in the U.S. and it probably already is one for all of North America.)
I fear that this is not unlike the paradox faced by the other English-speaking contributors to this list. We are sorry that our language has become the standard language of international discourse---not by design but by default. Short of choosing the language of the competition by lot, or cancelling the competition altogether, I suggest that we simply accept that English is the accepted language of the list and let that be the language of the competition, of necessity but with regret.
If there is but one list contributor who objects to this, I'll change my recommendation to this. Let's continue the limericks, in any language of choice, but to drop the judging of a winner and awarding of a prize, declaring that all contributors are winners and putting them all together in a special document on a selected web site following a cut-off date, such as 1 November of this year. That way the complete list of contributions can be downloaded and read by anyone. (What about the prize? Well, it could be awarded to me for the excellence of my recommendations!!! More appropriately, perhaps it could go to the originator and maintainer of the list, whoever that is, as a thank you for a job well done.)
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