Hi there.... it's good to be back...
So, I was listening to the radio the other day, and I heard a commercial that just got me shaking my head. It wasn't the whole commercial, just one line, one sentence, and it was in spanish. Let me preface this:
I'm not known for my tolerance for ultra-PC thinking. That doesn't mean that I'm a racially slurring, gay-bashing, handicapped-hating, sexually harassing asshole; I'm all for the equality of everyone, I just despise when the 'equality" is taken too far, or to places where it's just not necessary. The Braille instructions on the bank drive-thru instantly comes to mind. Another is the 500 page manual that came with my stereo, of which 20 are actually in english, the rest in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Lebanese, Ancient Egyptian, Klingon, and Latin. But, whatever, I've learned to deal. But then I heard this commercial and I had to laugh. I honestly don't know what it was for, since I don't pay attention to commercials all that much, I think it may have been for a construction company or plumber. So let's just say for the sake of argument it was for a plumber. The announcer went through his shtick, "We unclog drains, fix bathtubs, emergency 24 hour service," etc. etc. Then he says, "Se habla espanol", meaning, obviously, "we speak Spanish". Which would have been somewhat acceptable had I been watching a TV commercial - visually seeing a man doing plumbing stuff, or even a newspaper ad - with some nifty little plumber clipart, you know, SOMETHING to let me know what the advert was about without knowing the language. But this was a RADIO COMMERCIAL. So, in essence, a spanish-speaking person was driving through town listening to the radio, and a commercial comes on: "BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH, We speak spanish, BLAH BLAH." What the?!? I can just see the bewildered look on this anonymous person's face, as he tries to decipher who exactly speaks spanish and whether or not he requires their services... Totally wasted three seconds of airtime, if you ask me.
Still not convinced? Try it: You're driving through some country, know little to nothing of the language, and your car breaks down. while trying to start it up again, a commercial comes on, " Veristi mauble dudoni co pilgrehanda em tutonici ferol plistic. Garblo fecitan tualtin feistu. We speak english. Corbunico flees! Fee Shindo Shindo, hoder vevin, shindo cond."
Yes, the fact that the towtruck driver (who's commercial you just heard) speaks english really helps out here.
