[Sca-cooks] OT OOP "Official Language" was Seville orange substitutions
David Friedman
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Fri Jul 16 10:16:31 PDT 2004
>Pardon me, the "official language" of the United States is English. It is
>the language chosen for the conduct of government in Congress assembled over
>200 years ago. It won out over German by one vote.
It's a good story, but apparently not true:
---
On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give
German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in
German as well as English. During the debate, a motion to adjourn
failed by one vote. The final vote rejecting the translation of
federal laws, which took place one month later, is not recorded.
--
This is from a fairly detailed account, both of the origin of the
urban legend about German and of the actual history, webbed at:
http://www.watzmann.net/scg/german-by-one-vote.html
--
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
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