What Have They Got Against English

From the desk of Elaib Harvey on Wed, 2008-01-02 09:20

Walking past the European Parliament building in Brussels yesterday I noticed this sign to the visitor's centre (said to be Belgium's leading tourist site). Spot the deliberate mistake.

@ELAIB

Submitted by Norman Conquest 304 on Thu, 2008-01-03 12:02.

Hi, this is Stan Laurel. Why Stan Laurel? Because Laurel and Harvey! Couldn't resist it. Ooops.

Well, I would call your reaction "strange" to say the least.

On the one hand, you promote the ideas of the UKIP (no worries, it's your most legitimate right), which are tantamount to a new sort of isolationism - although I consider this attitude very hypocritical: the English love to interfere into other [European] countries' affairs - a pathetic version of "The Empire Strikes Back" if you like -, and on the other, you find it annoying that English, a powerful cultural tool indeed, has been omitted.

I don't understand your logic, ol'chap.

Probably deliberate and not a mistake.

Submitted by Fellow Peacekeeper on Wed, 2008-01-02 18:58.

I dissent.

First, those are all EU member countries (flags) / EU official languages (Irish = Gaelic become an official EU language in 2007)

It seems to be the middle sign of several, the countries appear are in alphabetic order according to their native spelling (Note the order Ireland-Italy-Latvija-Lietuva-Magyarország, and not Hungary-Ireland-Italy-Latvia-Lithuania). Czech, German (Deutschland) and Spanish (España) would be on a previous sign, while Portugese, Finnish (Suomi) and Swedish on a latter. Perhaps the author can look again and inform us whether this be so.

There is Italian (third row).

The "mistake" is the English flag is misplaced along with the Ireland (Gaelic) inscription, however this is probably deliberate : Irish is an officialy recognized langauge in Northern Ireland, and Scottish Gaelic is rather similar and a recognized language in Scotland. Whether this impliction that there may be a mixture of Gaelic speakers in the UK represents some anti-UK separatist plot and or Francophone snub we can only guess.

Gaelic

Submitted by Elaib on Thu, 2008-01-03 11:48.

This is not the only pannel, the other languages etc are on the other panels, it just made me smile.
And that is the British rather than the English falg, so by extension the Gaelic is legitimate - though unbelievably minority in theUK.

Elaib Harvey