23 June 2009
McKean’s Law (also known as Gaudere’s Law or jocularly as Muphry’s Law) states, “if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.” This past weekend this law was succinctly and humorously demonstrated by Pat Buchanan criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for her attempts to improve her English as a young student at a meeting of an anti-immigration group while standing underneath a banner that read, “2009 National Conferenece.”
Those who advocate for English as a national language of the United States are, at best, ignorant of the facts about immigration and language acquisition and, at worst, are racist.
And never mind the hypocrisy in Buchanan’s argument. He wants everyone to speak English, but when a woman (American-born, not even an immigrant) who has grown up in a Spanish-speaking household in New York wishes to improve her English skills, he derides her attempts to do so.
