Why Good English Is Good For You Analysis

In the three articles “Do you Speak American” by Robert Macneil, “Why Good English is Good for You” by John Simon, and “Lost in America” by Douglas McGray they all share the same theme that Americans lack the motivation to be culturally diverse and broaden their horizons outside of the American Culture due to the lack of funds. This basically means that Americans lack the motivation to learn more about their culture and other cultures because they focus more on fitting in and doing the same thing as all other Americans. They lose the drive to be different and to educate themselves based on where they came from. In “Do You Speak American”, Macneil emphasizes how even though we have different cultures within America, we are all “Americanized”

334)”, this is explaining that Americans are not being properly educated. They have to teach themselves what is right and wrong when it comes to the English language. They are unable to look up to older authorities to help them therefor they cannot broaden their horizons when it comes to the English language and culture. In “Lost In America” McGray says, “ The president’s language may promise $24 million to promote foreign-language instructions in K-12 schools, but that seems pretty paltry compared to the $206 million he requested to fund abstinence-only sex education”(McGray Pg. 356), this proves that our priorities are focused elsewhere and not on our language and culture. This compares to the previous article because without proper funding we are lacking the ability to learn, therefore having to teach ourselves; which leads to improper learning. In “Do You Speak American” Macneil says, “ You do have to be bilingual in this country, which means you can be very adept at slang”(MacNeil Pg.311), this goes against the first two articles because it is basically saying that you have to do be very fluent in slang but if we were educated in proper English then we would not know