Thursday, August 16, 2007

Annoying Signs

Seen on a little sign at a blackjack table at a casino recently:

"English Only Spoken at this table"

(They put this sign up because a lot of Asians come to play in the casino, and the management are a bunch of jingoistic, culturally insensitive .... English speakers, who don't want the Asians talking to each other in their native tongues while playing blackjack. IMNSHO)

I wonder if any of the Asians ever tell them they're not doing anything with English other than speaking it, so what's the problem? Probably not, I suspect. What else would one do with it, one wonders. Butcher it, perhaps.

"English only butchered by the management"

(English clearly not written! Or do I mean to say "English not clearly written"?)

3 comments:

Megs said...

at the NEXT table, they're speaking Korean,and theone beyond that, Turkish, and that one over there, Bislama ... only at this one is English allowed...
hope you're having a good night out there in the big casino, and love you and miss you home in our little bed
love megs

stephy said...

It's so they can make sure they're not cheating

Benjamin Ady said...

hey stephanie! Hope you're well.

I wonder what the casino would consider "cheating". I mean leaving aside the really fun irony in the sign's poor use of english, there's really nothing I can think of which people could be saying out loud to each other at the table to enable them to cheat. In english or any other language. Okay, wait, I take that back. If the dealer were in on it--if the dealer were talking with the customers in a language the floor couldn't understand, then that could theoretically enable some cheating--but it would still involve more than just talk, and the cameras would pick it up, and the dealer would lose their job, which would suck for them.

all of which is to say, it's just stupid in my opinion. stupid and unkind.