People Who Live in Glass Steakhouses …

At Geno’s Steakhouse in Philadelphia, a sign with a big American eagle says:

This Is AMERICA
Please WHEN ORDERING
“SPEAK ENGLISH”

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations calls the sign intimidating and discriminatory, and wants to force the owner, Joey Vento, to take it down. Vento’s lawyer says the sign expresses concern for the plight of immigrants and that Vento is trying to help them by encouraging them to learn English.

Speak English or my eagle will bite you Okay, two easy questions and one harder one:

1. Is Vento’s sign obnoxious, nationalistic, and bigoted? Yes, of course.  (I mean, just look at it. Concern for immigrants, my ass.)

2. Is Vento nevertheless within his rights to post the sign? Yes, of course.

Those were the easy questions. Now the hard one:

3. Why is “SPEAK ENGLISH” in quotation marks?

Perhaps Vento’s grasp of correct English usage isn’t as strong as he supposes – which suggests he may not be ideally positioned to be lecturing others on correct linguistic behaviour.

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11 Responses to People Who Live in Glass Steakhouses …

  1. Taylor December 15, 2007 at 10:57 pm #

    It’s probably in quotes to signify that it’s a common phrase around his steakhouse. In other words, if you visit his steakhouse, you’ll be hearing “Speak English” quite a bit.

    Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations… BWA HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. I suppose they won’t be investigating the way they relate to the humans who are forced to fund their inquisition. What a disgrace.

  2. Administrator December 16, 2007 at 2:28 am #

    It’s probably in quotes to signify that it’s a common phrase around his steakhouse

    So the sign is merely quoting the imperative, not actually issuing it! Gee, he should have used that point in his defense.

    I suppose they won’t be investigating the way they relate to the humans who are forced to fund their inquisition.

    Yeah, at least people have a choice as to whether to be Vento’s customers. The residents of Philadelphia have no choice as to whether to be the “customers” of this Commission.

  3. William H. Stoddard December 16, 2007 at 12:29 pm #

    It’s probably in quotes to signify that it’s a common phrase around his steakhouse. In other words, if you visit his steakhouse, you’ll be hearing “Speak English” quite a bit.

    That strikes me as a folk theory that has no real foundation. So does the theory that he wasn’t actually affirming it as his command, but merely suggesting that some other people might do so—that is, as a way of distancing himself.

    I see quotation marks used on lots of commercial signs. The only thing they have in common is that they appear to be meant as a form of emphasis, a way of making the quoted words stand out—a substitute for italicizing them, underlining them, capitalizing them, or following them with an exclamation point, all of which are standard orthographic devices for accomplishing the same purpose. Why anyone felt the need for an additional device puzzles me, and I suspect that the people who do are a bit unclear on punctuation in general, but that seems to be the intended use.

    Those who have mastered traditional English punctuation will derive a certain amusement from signs such as

    Scissors “sharpened” here

    which suggest that the scissors aren’t really sharpened at all. But I don’t believe such can plausibly be taken as the intent of the sign.

  4. Presto December 16, 2007 at 12:42 pm #

    There is an entire blog dedicated to the misuse of quotation marks called The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. It’s at http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

  5. Administrator December 16, 2007 at 1:31 pm #

    I agree that misuse of quotation marks is often confusedly intended as a form of emphasis. But here’s an odd case: when I was in college our dining hall had slots into which we were supposed to place our discarded knives, forks, and spoons. Each slot had the appropriate label: “KNIVES,” “FORKS,” “SPOONS,” in quotation marks. As the labels had nothing not in quotation marks, emphasis doesn’t seem to have been the point.

  6. Micha Ghertner December 16, 2007 at 2:30 pm #

    he may not be ideally positioned to be lecturing others on correct linguistic behaviour.

    Behaviour? Behaviour?!? Roderick, are you secretly a royalist, doing your best (worst?) to undermine the sovereignty of this great nation, the U.S. of A? Dammit, Rod, this is AMERICA! They can take our lives, but they will never take our Americanized spelling. Yeeearrrrgh!

  7. Venus Cassandra December 16, 2007 at 11:20 pm #

    English may be the state declared official language of the land, but I thought this was the melting pot? It couldn’t be too hard to figure out an arrangement to deal with people that haven’t mastered English yet. There are a lot of places that do it already when they ask whether you want to hear it in Spanish or English.

  8. Andy Stedman December 17, 2007 at 9:44 am #

    What if one cannot read the sign? Is there a multilingual version, also with incorrect pronunciation?

    S’il vous plait, >

  9. Andy Stedman December 17, 2007 at 10:52 am #

    I suck.

    “Pronunciation” = “punctuation”.

    The html formatting ruined the next line. I had written:

    S’il vous plait, «parlez anglais».

  10. Skip Oliva December 17, 2007 at 11:30 am #

    This is all a moot point. Once Ron Paul is president, you better believe everybody will be speaking English, because Dr. No won’t take “Si” for an answer.

  11. Bubba December 21, 2007 at 12:49 pm #

    I love guys like Joey Vento. He is ideally positioned in his own store to lecture whomever on whatever he damn well pleases.
    No shirt. No shoes. No English. No Service.

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