General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should DU be an English Only site? [View all]Violet_Crumble
(36,073 posts)I've been at DU a long time and seen people post in foreign languages, but they provide translations. I'm taking a guess that it's because they want people who only speak English to understand what was said. Nothing xenophobic about that at all. While English is the main language here, there's some slight and not so slight variations between American English and ours that I try to keep in mind when I post at DU, because I want as many DUers as possible to understand what I'm saying. There's this word that gets used here. Sometimes it's peppered in conversations because here it's used casually and its usage is very different, but if I used it here at DU where most DUers are Americans, I'd get a string of hidden posts and Skinner would probably march me out the door, coz it's one of the worst words to use in the US.
I see deliberately posting in another language without a translation at DU knowing that many people won't understand it kind of similar to how it'd be if my two best friends and me went to lunch and they suddenly cut me out of the conversation by talking in Vietnamese and snickering. I'd be sitting there wondering if they were saying something bad about me or something, and I'd think it was a bit rude of them, especially if once it was pointed out to them, they refused to see anything wrong with them having done it in the first place. I'd probably call them that word I was just telling you about that I'll never utter here at DU and walk out on them...