# Yay!  We speak English!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yay-we-speak-english/196117>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 19, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yay-we-speak-english/196117 "2003-08-19T03:21:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![spanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@spanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spanna)\
**Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yay-we-speak-english/196117/21 "2003-08-21T15:52:27Z")

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I always assumed it was because Americans wouldn’t be able to figure out which option to choose if you showed the Union Jack.

Had to show the 'ol stars & stripes or the help lines would have gone into meltdown

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**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\
**Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yay-we-speak-english/196117/22 "2003-08-21T16:00:11Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by curly chick \*  
> \*\*It has a St George’s cross for England, a St Andrews cross, or saltire for Scotland and the cross of St Patrick, for us, here in Ireland. \*\*

You might want to re-think that old colonialist propaganda that the blood-soaked saltire on the Union Jack is the “cross of St. Patrick”.

> [@](#):
>
> The proposal to include a saltire in the insignia of the Order of Saint Patrick was condemned by contemporary Irish opinion. A press report published in February 1783 complained that “the breasts of Irishmen were to be decorated by the bloody Cross of St Andrew, and not that of the tutelar Saint of their natural isle”. Another article claimed that “the Cross of St Andrew the Scotch saint is to honour the Irish order of St Patrick, by being inserted within the star of the order” and described this as “a manifest insult to common sense and to national propriety”.

From  
[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1648/cros\_e.htm](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1648/cros_e.htm)  
[http://www.doyle.com.au/st\_pats\_flag.htm](http://www.doyle.com.au/st_pats_flag.htm)

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