If you're reading this in English

[undyingking]

Interesting post in languagelog about a bumper sticker saying "If you can read this, thank a teacher. And if you're reading it in English, thank a soldier."

I won't reiterate the discussion there¹ -- but I wondered if anyone had seen this sentiment expressed in the UK, where it would make a lot more sense as a proposition, in relation to WWII². Has anyone in the UK seen or heard of the teachers' message being added to / hijacked in this way?

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1 Except to say that I favour the "ill-thought-out generalized right-wing puffery" theory.
2 Of course one might argue that Battle of Britain aircrew, naval convoys, or Russians, were more to thank, but leave that for now.

Comments

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

So far as I know there was no attempt made to impose German as an official language on the Vichy government, which I'd imagine would be a closer model for a post-defeat UK than the forced Germanization of Eastern Europe.

Apologies if this was covered in the thread you link to, I've not had the chance to have a look at that yet. Anyway, no, I've not seen anything like this in the UK!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

One would have to assume that they'd wait for the war to be over before implementing such a far-reaching administrative project, so they never got the chance to do it in France.

But yes, it does seem a wee bit fanciful -- unless they had the extreme Whorfian / Orwellian belief that an imposed language would have the power to tame the thought patterns of the conquered.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I can see the likelihood of a new ruling elite insisting that all government documents are in their own language, and possibly that official business be conducted in it.

I think it was pretty recent (in the last 10 years) that Parliament abandoned the practice of writing new English laws on vellum, in Norman French. Can you imagine that? On vellum. In Norman French!!! That's what I love about this country, we have the best anachronisms (or we did before New Labour got into power anyway... I don't think it's even compulsory to practise archery on a Sunday nowadays)!

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

AFAIK the Nazis had a fair amount of respect for the British, both racially and culturally (in so far as they saw any difference between the two), and would have avoided war if it were possible to do so without impeding their plans for Eastern Europe.

I guess it would depend on how easily the UK fell under the yoke - if it was a well behaved satellite state then I suspect they would have been happy to leave it as such, but I'm certainly no expert and it's impossible to say how things might have gone if they had indefinite time and opportunity at their disposal.

Anyway, have you heard about this? A film coming out later this year with the tagline "In 1945 the Nazis went to the Moon. In 2018 they are coming back": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

I agree with this comment...

The comment kind of fails to see World War 2 in context apart from choosing 'winners' and 'losers'.

We should be thanking the Russian speaking soldiers who died on the East Front if you want to think of it like that. By the time the US started showing up with soldiers (rather than lend lease, equipment, naval and air help), the war was really about the Eastern front and the Germans and Italians were being pushed out of North Africa, the home islands had weathered the Blitz. In the Pacific it's a different story and the huge naval prescence the US had was started to have an effect much earlier.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Heh, see my note [2] above re Russians. Western under-appreciation of what happened on the Eastern Front is one of my pet peeves.

[thecesspit.livejournal.com]

I missed yer footnote :) I suspected you knew what I wrote anyways.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That sounds a must-see! -- excellent idea.