Welcome to America

Today I spent about twenty minutes behind a truck that had the following bumper sticker: Welcome to America. Now, speak English.

Aside from the general irritation I feel whenever I bump up against folks who have conveniently forgotten that their families, too, were once immigrants, the irony of that particular sentiment in this particular locale is that Central Pennsylvania has some very unique speech patterns, the most distinctive of which come directly from the German spoken by their immigrant forbears.

The three which most stand out to my Minnesota ears:

1. The “What for. . .”
As in, when offered something to drink, a Central Pennsylvanian might ask, “What for soda do you have?” It comes directly from the German construct “Was fur,” zum Beispiel (for example): “Was fur die Getranken haben Sie?”

2. The “it’s all.”
If a Central Pennsylvanian tells you this, it means whatever it is that you asked for is finished. For example, “The cake is all” means there is no more cake, it has all been eaten. Again, comes directly from the German construct “ist alle.” Zum Beispiel: “Der Kuchen ist alle,” literally means “The cake is finished.” Basically, somewhere in the two hundred years of living in the United States, they merely dropped the “e” off the end of the word to make it an English word, but its meaning is still rooted in the German grammar construct and consequently makes no sense to any English speakers non-native to here because “all” does not mean “finished” in English in any place other than the “Dutchified” parts of Pennsylvania.

3. The missing infinitive
This is the one that most irritates me and every other non-native I know. Central Pennsylvanians don’t use the words “to be” (makes me wonder how a high school or community theater could ever put on a production of Hamlet).

I am totally serious. In the course of everyday conversation here one will regularly hear things like “My hair needs brushed,” or “This desk needs cleaned,” or “The apple needs cut,” as opposed to “My hair needs to be brushed,” and “This desk needs to be cleaned,” and “The apple needs to be cut.”

Again, this comes directly from the German, whose grammatical rules dictate when there are two verbs in one sentence, the infinitive gets kicked to the end of the sentence. In English that would mean saying “My hair needs brushed to be” which sounds even more ridiculous and “immigranty” than “My hair needs brushed.” So again, somewhere in the two hundred years of living here, they just dropped the infinitive out of the sentence completely.

So essentially, most of the peculiarities of Central Pennsylvania speech patterns can be credited to straight transliterations of German grammar constructs (with some deletions here and there). Which, ok, fine, that’s part of their heritage and who they are. . .but then be willing to give newer immigrants the same luxury or benefit of the doubt, huh?

I’m just saying, a culture that’s been here for several generations and is still almost defiantly proud of the ways that it does not speak proper English is not exactly in a position to throw stones at those just arriving on our shores. If you expect others to learn our language, then it’s only fair that you, the native speaker, make the effort to learn it and use it accurately yourself.

It’s like that Jesus guy once said: take the log out of your own eye before you address the mote in the eye of your neighbor. Or, to paraphrase Papa H. (who was himself paraphrasing John Donne): therefore never send to know to whom the bumper sticker speaks; it speaks to thee.

So welcome to America, land of the many-tongued huddled masses yearning to breathe free.