The Spread of English

“Smoking cannabis on the street in Amsterdam’s red light district will soon be illegal, the city council has announced, as part of a range of bylaws designed to deter tourist excesses and make life more bearable for despairing local people.” And: “The city is still investigating a possible ban on stag and hen parties and the mayor wants to bar tourists from its cannabis coffeeshops.”

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April 5, 1933—the day that FDR ordered the seizure of the private gold holdings of the American people.

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With the current surplus of generation in the country’s energy system, Ukraine is ready to resume exporting electricity to the EU, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said after he met with EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson in Brussels.

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The Spread of English

From One Summer: America 1927.

. . . Universal and Paramount were both dominated by German stars and directors. Universal was said, only half in jest, to have German as its official language.

A few European actors – Peter Lorre, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo – adjusted to, or even thrived in the new sound regime, but most actors with foreign accents found themselves unemployable. Jannings, winner of the first Academy Award for acting, returned to Europe and spent the war years making propaganda films for the Nazis. Behind the scenes Europeans still thrived, but on screen movies were now a thoroughly American product.

Though the significance of this wasn’t much noticed in America, globally the effect was profound. Moviegoers around the world suddenly found themselves exposed, often for the first time, to American voices, American vocabulary, American cadence and pronunciation and word order. Spanish conquistadors, Elizabethan courtiers, figures from the Bible were suddenly speaking in American voices – and not just occasionally but in film after film after film. The psychological effect of this, particularly on the young, can hardly be overstated. With American speech came American thoughts, American attitudes, American humor and sensibilities. Peacefully, by accident, and almost unnoticed, America had just taken over the world.