Lawmakers don't make languages
I have been in the language business since the late 60s when I taught foreign languages in high school. Since then I have lived in numerous foreign countries and have become a polyglot translator, working from nearly 2 dozen languages, partly out of hunger but also because I am genuinely intrigued by foreign languages and the kaleidoscope of diversity they represent.
The reason I decided to write you is that there seems to be a popular misconception that the idea of marriage, or at least the quaint notion of marriage being this union between a man and a woman and not a union between a man and, for example, his yak, is strictly a Judeo-Christian construct that can be neglected in the grand scheme of things.
To comment on this letter, click on “Comments” below
Here is something for your readers to ponder:
In every single one of the languages that I have studied or had meaningful relationships with, including 2 Asian ones spoken in predominantly Buddhist regions, there is a word that is equivalent to our word "marriage" in English, and believe it or not, it means exactly the same thing as in English: a union between a man and a woman. Further, this ancient definition has stood, in most cases, for millennia. Amazing isn't it, that the Ph.D.s never figured this out?
It wasn't until post-modern smarty-pants and their Marxist traditiophobic notions came along that marriage could suddenly mean whatever anyone with enough chutzpa to push an agenda wants it to. Presto-changeo, lawmakers and, in particular, judges in various parts of the country with more advanced degrees than common sense have demanded that we start warping our natural language out of shape to accommodate their revolutionary pipe-dreams.
We are the American people. Our language is our verbal heritage, and we can preserve it.
All it takes is the will to do so, and all that takes is the knowledge that we decide, not Harvard elitists who despise us.
Right now the most important word in that verbal heritage is : no.
Don Hank
Seems like you do a little despising yourself. I mean, how many insults of educated people can you cram into one letter?
Harvard Elitists
Marxist,
smarty pants, etc.
You forgot "egghead".
And I didn't know until now that Ph. D. was an insult.