By Patrick F. Cannon
By executive order, President Trump – who has only a limited facility with it himself – declared English as the “Official Language” of these United States. Congress has never done the same. A future president could well issue an executive order cancelling Trump’s and making French the official language. Just kidding!
Whether official or not, everyone who lives in the United States does or should speak English. For new arrivals, mastering it should be a high priority. While you may be able get along with Spanish (for example) in some neighborhoods, you would not be able to get more than a menial job unless you know and speak English.
English speakers are fortunate in many ways. While French and Italian may sound sweeter to the ear, it is far more useful to speak English. More people around the world have English as a second language than any other. I spent a year in France in the army, and at the end of 1963 I could speak passable French. It was more important then, particularly outside Paris. I have been back to France several time more recently, and although any facility I once had with French is long gone, I have been able to get along with English only, and not just in France.
Because it is so willing to accept new words, often from other languages, English dictionaries include far more words than those of other languages. The Oxford English Dictionary includes some 600,000, while America’s Merriam Webster Unabridged has 470,000 (they have fewer obsolete words than Oxford)
In contrast, the Academie Francaise – the guardian of the French language – accepts only about 100,000, although a more widely used dictionary lists about 150,000. To their consternation, French is no longer the language of diplomacy; and scientist around the world communicate in English. After Russian, more people have read Tolstoy’s War and Peace in English than any other language. Why is this?
One explanation is simply that the United States became the dominant world power because of and after World War II. But even before then, American movies and popular music had become dominant. While great films had been made in Europe since the beginning of the art form, Hollywood films gained the largest audiences. I remember being in Paris when one of the Star War’s movies had just been released, and seeing long lines at one of the city’s largest theatres. And, of course, the famous British bands of the 60s (who spoke a similar language) like the Beatles and Rolling Stones happily admitted to the strong American influence on their music.
Let me finish with a personal experience. When I worked for Lions Clubs International, I was responsible for its magazines. I had direct supervision of the American English and Spanish editions but also had supervisory responsibility for the 20 plus others. We had a Danish edition, and the editor was an amiable and charming man, who spoke perfect English as well as Swedish, German, and French. When he was in those countries, he of course spoke those languages, but everywhere else English was the most useful. As he once told me” “There are only 6 million Danes. What are the chances of finding a Danish speaker in Italy?”
Well, English is a splendid language. Now, if we could just teach our young people to write and speak it properly. And our politicians too!
Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon
