WARNING: Morons Lurk...

We did? I was under the impression that the English language is in a constant state of evolution, and was influenced by the foreign invaders (Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes, Romans, French, etc.) whose blood is no doubt running through our veins -- no matter how hard certain authorities try to standardize it.

Hardly projecting prejudices. merely making an observation.

The second part of your comment that I have quoted , to use your term 'logic', explains the logic of my statement.

No one is going to another 'country' where English is the native language. English and derivatives may be widely spoken, but is not the only language spoken in the world, to assume that people who use SL have to speak English is arrogance. To insist that they should apologise if they don't is crass. So the two interacting parties don't speak the same language. When I encounter such a situation, I explain my predicament and either use the basic knowledge I may have of the language involved and/or use an online translation service to exlain that fact. I don't assume the non-English speaker should apologise to me, nor do I feel the need to apologise for my lack of their language.

Perhaps you should look at the bottom of the forum sections and notice there are foreign language areas. Should the people using those forum sections preface every posting with an apology, or perhaps users of the platform should stop being so arrogant as to assume everyone is fluent in English and that is the only acceptable langage in the online community. A commmunity open to the world, not a Country where English is the only language.

I notice you are from the USA, I do not speak fluent Spanish, am I supposed to apologise in the USA for not being a fluent Spanish speaker? Do the many Americans who do not speak Spanish apologise to their fellow citizens for this lack of language skill?

I agree with your comment that becoming irritated because someone does not understand your language is unhelpful. However the very lack of the other perons language may mean their choice of words is inappropriate, rather than them trying to become offensive.

Why do you keep trying to make this to be more than it is? I never once said that a person needs to apologise to me or anyone else for not speaking a certain language.

My original comment was that they should not get mad at someone who can't understand them when they are trying to speak a different language. If you are trying to speak another language to someone don't get angry at them if you can't do it. If anything you should apologise for being hard to understand, since it's your fault.

What part of that statement do you not understand?

I, for one, apologize for not speaking Swahili.

Obviously all of it Vares.

I find your comment, context and subsequent postings not only arrogant but ignorant of others.

You may feel that hurling personal insults is a way to regain the upper hand, however, it merely demonstrates the paucity of your argument.

You criticise a non-English speaker for becoming annoyed, yet I find a certain tetchiness in your own responses.

Is that the type of apology you are expecting non-English speakers to offer?

You may have made a comment you didn't feel in anyway was conceited or problematical. However, the fact that four, not three replies indicate you may, just may, have worded your statement badly.

To attempt to insult those who found your comment distasteful, does nothing to strengthen your argument and merely detracts from it.

You assert politeness is the way for these issues of failure of communication to be addressed, yet fail to follow your own edict, once you find your comments have been interpreted in a way you didn't intend.

I, am a native English speaker, yet your comments have been construed as offensive by myself. Now try to place that in context of a non-native speaker in a faster exchange of conversation and you may appreciate better, the reality of an interchange.

I have no difficulty in English language comprehension, but thanks very much for asking.

When I was on orkut, many Brazilians thought us English speakers should apologise for not speaking their dialect of Portuguese, too. Rather rudely and aggressively, whilst invading *English language communities* and overwhelming them with numbers of people who the forums weren't originally designed to serve, run by volunteer moderators who couldn't speak a word of their language, and resigned and/or stopped logging in droves due to the assault and inability to moderate the forum effectively any longer. I wish someone would have called these people who abused the forum mods and English speaking participants -racist- too (not to mention blaming them for the war in Iraq, electing George W. Bush - and this even to people from Estonia, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, where its clear they have NOTHING whatever to do with US politics!!!!), but you know, if you're not from Northern European descent, it seems perfectly ok to some people to be a racist idiot

They had their own communities, but still invaded the English language ones, which I might add, were populated by people from all over the planet. Many countries across the globe use English as a lingua franca and speaking English doesn't automatically mark your race. Not every Mandarin speaker is going to know Hindi, or Hindi speaker know Farsi, or Farsi speaker know Russian, or Russian know Hungarian, or Hungarian know French, or French know Swahili, etc. etc. But most educated people in these countries from ALL races do learn English, and use it to communicate with each other.

I think it depends on context. I regularly apologise for not speaking German as well as I should too, as environments where I live are German speaking. Not because I'm sorry about it, but to inform the person that I'm not as good at it and to take it easy. I think it would be very rude to do as the original poster described, in rudely abusing the builders for his inability to express himself and its clear there was a language barrier there. I think the poster was merely talking about courtesy in an environment where your language is not spoken by those you're communicating with, be it English or whatever. For all you know, English may not even be their primary language either, but a third language that they learned in school and just using it as lingua franca.

It made perfect sense to me, but I don't suffer from political correctness syndrome and regularly speak to non-English speakers, every single day.

SL is international yes. People in most countries learn English as an international language, as a supplement to their native language to speak to people from other countries, who normally do not speak that language. I regularly see French people speaking English to Germans, Russians speaking English to Italians, etc. It is normal courtesy to apologise for not speaking a language well when speaking it in company with speakers of another language, no matter what the language is. The OP described a situation where the person who could not speak the (English) language treated them rudely. It only took a "racist" perception to you because that language was English and the persons spoken to likely Caucasian native speakers of English. The fact is, it doesn't matter what the language is or where the conversation took place, it's simply rude and the person should have been apologising instead of being rude, and should have gotten a translator and/or dictionary to help out.

The fact remains, that the person who was rude in the OP's post is the person where the blame lies. Not only was this person rude, apparantly they walked off with the OP's work for free. Now, this is also a lesson in not giving someone custom work until its paid for, but that's another issue.

Ahh, a ray of light in the darkness!

* puts on hard hat and waves in the wreckin ball..................