Thread: Philly cheese steak king wins battle over please speak english sign

Originally Posted by gugi

i guess i may as well post in this thread too.

i don't see anything wrong with asking people to do things in certain way. the way he went about it though tells me that that's not what he wanted to do. clearly the only people who may benefit from the sign are those who (1) know enough english to read and understand it (2) choose not to use english when ordering.

as always there are million ways to say something and each would have different effect. if i want to show my appreciation for my customers my sign would be something along the lines 'we would highly appreciate if ordering in english'. he chose different language, which doesn't encourage cooperation, its main value is as a political statement and as any polarizing political statement you will pick up a lot of support from one side and a lot of negativity from the other.

when i go to the theater i see a sign about turning off my cell phone. and yet despite the signs there's always one person with ringing cellphone (at which point many others get reminded how annoying this can be). if these signs are phrased a bit differently i suspect you will see a whole lot of people making calls to each other few times just as a matter of protest.

in any case, i don't see it as a big deal either way. because the politics in us are the way they are, he went to court and the court ruled in his favor. this is america - happens everyday. looks like he's always been able to get plenty of clientele so now he can also rise his prices and keep the clientele too. i'm sure the moment he got the notice he must've thought he's won the lottery (at least if he's smart and knows how things work in america).

Hey Gugi, the part I highlighted in red is almost verbatim what his sign said. I don't understand the problem your having!?

nope, take a look at the sign. there's a mean looking eagle (it's a bird anyways, but they tend to have mean look, the same way puppies have cute look), then the sign says:
This Is AMERICA. WHEN ORDERING Please "SPEAK ENGLISH"

The please though is completely different font face, weight, and color, and it almost blends with the flag, so it certainly is diminished as much as possible (I tried to encode as much as possible of the typography above). Ask any graphic designer if you don't believe me. I don't think I have a problem with it. The only problem I have is understanding the significance of quotes in the sign and find it a bit ironic that a person would insist on using English with a grammatically questionable statement.

I certainly speak english and order in as stylistically correct manner as I can and I eat out in establishments that vary from '$10 all you can eat wings and all you can drink beer', or where my table is the only english speaking one to places where you must meet the dress code and the wine needs to be ordered first so that it can breathe for an hour.

Oh, well, it doesn't concern me very much - I may one day get a sandwich there or perhaps the alternative place that was mentioned, for the tourist factor, but it doesn't seem like a place I'd be a regular.

Originally Posted by azjoe

I have never visited a foreign country that I didn't try to converse in their language. I would never ever expect them to deal with me in my language... that's just plain arrogant. If they happen to know some English and I know some of their language, then so much the better... but who in their right mind would travel to a country without an interpreter if they know absolutely nothing of that countries language?

I'm pretty late to this thread and aside from Canada, I've only been to three other countries; Germany, Austria and Spain. On those occasions, I went into those trips with the notion that I would need to speak their language as best that I could to buy food, ask questions, etc. I bought the little translation books and went out for adventure.

In the most recent of those trips, my wife and I went to Spain. Both of us decided that we'd be ordering in Spanish or we'd be going hungry. There was a restaurant or two that had bilingual servers, but they asked us where we were from and proceeded to speak English unprompted. Most often, at grocery stores, etc we asked for what we wanted in Spanish. It never occurred to us that we should have been entitled to or have expected anyone there to speak English.

Chris L

English is only a majority language in the US (for the time being). It is not the official language, and I'm it never ever will be. Why? Because the US is an immigrant nation, and luckily that fact hasn't been forgotten; if you're tired of pressing one for English, I would recommend trying to learn a second language. It's much more difficult that pressing a button.

Good God, the fact that anyone could be offended by a business offering services in more than one language is borderline sociopathic. You know what? If a company is capable of offering that service, then I'm sure they have plenty more customers that will take up the slack left by your refusal, and someday, when you are locked in your house with no water, electricity or phone because you are offended by the horrible, multicultural state of the world today, maybe a nice Spanish speaking person will be nice enough to interpret for you so you can order a pizza.

Originally Posted by JimR

English is only a majority language in the US (for the time being). It is not the official language, and I'm it never ever will be. Why? Because the US is an immigrant nation, and luckily that fact hasn't been forgotten; if you're tired of pressing one for English, I would recommend trying to learn a second language. It's much more difficult that pressing a button.

Good God, the fact that anyone could be offended by a business offering services in more than one language is borderline sociopathic. You know what? If a company is capable of offering that service, then I'm sure they have plenty more customers that will take up the slack left by your refusal, and someday, when you are locked in your house with no water, electricity or phone because you are offended by the horrible, multicultural state of the world today, maybe a nice Spanish speaking person will be nice enough to interpret for you so you can order a pizza.

Be careful throwing such big words around Jim, you might hurt yourself, besides which you suggested that at least half of us who posted have no consciense (that is within the scope of the word "sociopath"). Also, you misrepresented the problem that many of us have with this. Its not that we have a problem with other languages being used or restaraunts using more than 1 or 2 languages if they so choose. The main problem is with people coming to America and expecting America to change to suit them rather than making an effort to make the change to fit in! Also, I believe the restaurant owner, right or wrong, should have the right to display the sign and serve whomever he pleases, and refuse to serve whomever he pleases! His actions will affect his business and he will reap the benifits or suffer the consequences accordingly

Hasn't this discussion happened seven or eight times already?

Originally Posted by icedog

Hasn't this discussion happened seven or eight times already?

That obviously wasn't enough.

Originally Posted by JMS

Be careful throwing such big words around Jim, you might hurt yourself, besides which you suggested that at least half of us who posted have no consciense (that is within the scope of the word "sociopath"). Also, you misrepresented the problem that many of us have with this. Its not that we have a problem with other languages being used or restaraunts using more than 1 or 2 languages if they so choose. The main problem is with people coming to America and expecting America to change to suit them rather than making an effort to make the change to fit in! Also, I believe the restaurant owner, right or wrong, should have the right to display the sign and serve whomever he pleases, and refuse to serve whomever he pleases! His actions will affect his business and he will reap the benifits or suffer the consequences accordingly

Don't talk to me about big words, Mark. I know more big words in more languages than you can guess, and I can usually spell them right.

If you (that's the non-specific you) are offended by the fact that a business offers a multi-linguistic service to others that have absolutely no relationship to yourself, to the extent that you refuse to give that business your custom, then I would say that you are in territory bordering on criteria 1, 4, 6 and very possibly 7 (though I don't know how persistent the problem is) of the ICD-10 criteria for dissocial personality disorder, often equated with sociopathy. If you are so upset by the thought that people in "your" country are being accomodated in their own language that you hang up on a phone call that you yourself made, I am comfortable in saying that you have an emotional problem. If you disagree, I'm comfortable with that. I hope you are, too.

OK, that's it, I have to stop reading anything on the internet that is not directly shaving related, it's just too depressing.