Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 08:44:54 -0500
From: Malini Johar Schueller <mschuell-AT-english.ufl.edu>
Subject: Re: Your Excellency "Wolf Factory" and "the English Language" 


Azfar: 
That was a wonderful response to "Wolf."  It reminded me of Eagleton's
criticism of Spivak.  He didn't say she was too erudite but that she simply
didn't know how to use the language (I'm paraphrasing here).
Malini J. Schueller   


At 04:57 PM 12/28/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Your Excellency "Wolf Factory" and "the English Language":
>
>With due respect and humble submission I beg to state that I, Azfar
>Hussain, s/o Ashraf Ali, Village-Bhatkhali, P.O.-Atrai, District-Rajshahi,
>Bangladesh, now realize that I have been disrepectful toward "the English
>Language."
>
>Your Excellency, I still recall that one morning, in my English class at
>Rangpur Robertson Ganj Primary School, I disastrously dropped the article
>"the" before "English language" and that my missionary Headmaster--who
>wanted to cleanse the dirt off my "english" with Nesfield's
>_Grammar_--corrected me, saying: "You always need the definite article
>'the' before words like 'English language.'" Did I learn it then?
>
>But now I'm learning from you, Your Excellency Woolf Factory!
>
>I'm trying to understand what it means to "pervert the English language."
>However, if my "english" (sometimes it becomes "benglish") breathes badly
>or if I happen to "pervert" your "the English language," would it be
>difficult for those linguistic care-takers like you to purify or redeem it?
>O my bad sense of linguistic hygiene! But, Your Excellency, I'll keep your
>imperative--"Please stop perverting the English language"--in mind.
>
>Now, Your Excellency, I've a brother back home. Once upon a time that very
>ungrammatical-unlovely-unlyrical and mumbo-jumbo-muttering brother of mine
>peed on the holy Logos, on "the" English alphabet. Baas! He was accused of
>committing the sin of perversion and was also severely punished. The
>respected guardians of "the English language" told my brother that he
>looked like a Caliban. They also asked him to abandon his bad habit of
>peeing and defecating in the open field. I apologize on behalf of my
>brother also.
>
>Your Excellency, you wondered if I "possibly
>have had the human race in mind when you [I] wrote" my post. Your concern
>with "the human race" is a "mahan" (Oops! Another sin! I'm using "bengali"
>in the midst of English!) or grand thing of which, I must confess, I'm
>incapable. Your Excellency, it's true that when I was writing my post my
>small imagination and my small "english" simply failed to be hospitable to
>"the human race" with the right kinds of linguistic dishes.
>
>O, the English language! Make me "human!"
>
>I've the honor to remain, Sir/Madam,
>
>Obediently yours,
>
>Azfar Hussain
>
>____________________THUS SPAKE "WOLF
FACTORY"_________________________________
>
>>Mr. Azfar: please stop perverting the English
>>language. I tried to read what you had written but
>>half way through I realised that you couldnt possibly
>>have had the human race in mind when you wrote it.  I
>>should imagine there are very few extraterrestrials
>>subscribing to this list.
>
>
>Azfar Hussain
>Department of English
>Washington State University
>Pullman, WA 99164-5020
>USA
>Phones: 509-335-1331 (office)
>        509-332-3344 (home)
>E-mail: azfar-AT-wsu.edu
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
Malini Johar Schueller
Professor
Department of English
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7310


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