# Hunting for english voting instructions (not to be a cock, but seriously, you guys) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 4, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunting-for-english-voting-instructions-not-to-be-a-cock-but-seriously-you-guys/471146 "2008-11-04T21:20:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunting-for-english-voting-instructions-not-to-be-a-cock-but-seriously-you-guys/471146/41 "2008-11-05T09:38:56Z")
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call some who speaks many languages? Multilingual. What do you call someone who speaks **only one** language? _Gringo._ ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunting-for-english-voting-instructions-not-to-be-a-cock-but-seriously-you-guys/471146/42 "2008-11-05T09:47:25Z")
> [@T\_SQUARE](#): > > Wait, you think in the world’s third most populous country with the world’s best universities which also happens to be very ethnically diverse you couldn’t find someone who speaks any given language? That’s absurd. With the exception of some ridiculously obscure dying languages, I’m pretty sure a foreign news show could find a speaker of damn near anything with a little research and a phone call or two. > > I guarantee that there are people who speak any language that TV has ever been broadcast in in the US right now. > > Even if I had to find someone who speaks a dead or dying language, I’d probably look to the United States first, outside of the native region. Are you kidding? Go to any middle-sized urban area in Korea, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, etc. and you’ll be able to stop random people on the street and within 10 minutes you’ll get someone fluent in English to help you out. The person you’re quoting is saying that the same isn’t really true for America. If a major news company from Russia stopped in an equal-sized place in the US, I honestly _don’t_ think they’d be able to find a random passerby with fluency in Russian. More on topic, what exactly is the reasoning behind disenfranchising a certain minority block of voters again? The inconvenience of having to search for 2 minutes for the English instructions? Are you serious? I’m reminded of certain laws that have been repealed in the US that said a person couldn’t vote unless they could fully sign their names… ---
**Author:** ![T\_SQUARE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@T\_SQUARE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T_SQUARE)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunting-for-english-voting-instructions-not-to-be-a-cock-but-seriously-you-guys/471146/43 "2008-11-05T10:48:53Z")
> [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](#): > > Are you kidding? > > Go to any middle-sized urban area in Korea, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, etc. and you’ll be able to stop random people on the street and within 10 minutes you’ll get someone fluent in English to help you out. > > The person you’re quoting is saying that the same isn’t really true for America. If a major news company from Russia stopped in an equal-sized place in the US, I honestly _don’t_ think they’d be able to find a random passerby with fluency in Russian. > > More on topic, what exactly is the reasoning behind disenfranchising a certain minority block of voters again? The inconvenience of having to search for 2 minutes for the English instructions? > > Are you serious? > > I’m reminded of certain laws that have been repealed in the US that said a person couldn’t vote unless they could fully sign their names… I was responding to a post that adamantly claimed a foreign news show couldn’t find anyone in the United States to speak their language. That is statistically ridiculous in a diverse and large country. There was nothing said about finding a passerby within a ten minute window. If such was implied, I missed it. And as to people in Japan or France or wherever speaking English, as I’ve argued many, many times, the marginal benefit of someone in another country learning English is much, much higher than that of an American learning a second language. I’m sure some foreigners learn English because they are enlightened to a degree that Americans can never hope to achieve or whatever, but for most of them, it’s just simply profitable to do so. As for printing the ballot, print it in Klingon for all I care, my only concern is that some voters aren’t shafted because they speak Kurdish and the ballot is in Farsi, but I’m sure whoever is in charge thought of that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hunting-for-english-voting-instructions-not-to-be-a-cock-but-seriously-you-guys/471146.md?page=2)