I wrote:
> It was Texas governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson
> in 1924 who said, “If English was good
> enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
Diceman says:
> This quote has a very Urban Legend-ish
> feel to it. What’s your source, Wendall. I
> ask because I’ve always suspected that it
> was made up as a joke by a hispanic
> comedian like Cheech Marin.
You’re right. It does sound like an urban legend, but if it is, it’s a very old urban legend. I was replying to oedipus, who wrote:
> I read a while back that some people were
> getting worried about the encroachment of
> Spanish into America, and they felt the
> need to legislate that English would
> remain the official language of the
> country (!). One Congressman spoke up in
> favour of English, his reasoning being
> that “If it’s good enough for Jesus
> Christ, it’s good enough for me.”
This makes it sound like it happened fairly recently. Clearly the story is older than that, regardless of whether it’s true or not. The closest that I can come to verifying the story just off-hand is that at this URL: http://www.hisp.com/apr96/bilingual.html
the following story is told:
> In explaining why Miriam “Ma” Ferguson,
> who was governor of Texas in 1924, was
> opposed to legislation that would have
> required every high school student in the
> state to learn a foreign language,
> Ferguson picked up a Bible and said, “If
> English was good enough for Jesus Christ,
> it ought to be good enough for the
> children of Texas.”
This is from an article called “The Politics of Language” from the April 1996 issue of a magazine called Hispanic. Somebody else will have to do the research to find out if this story is true. Hey, maybe Cecil wants to do it.
Incidentally, my name is spelled Wendell.