"If you can read this thank a teacher. If you can read this in English thank a soldier."

"If you can read this thank a teacher. If you can read this in English thank a soldier."

If you can read this bumper sticker phrase in Russian, Chinese, or Spanish, thank your lucky stars. Actually, if you could read this message in anything other than English you probably aren't an American.

I'm all for thanking everyone, but what do soldiers really have to do with the preservation of the English language? We won our independence from England, and last I checked they spoke something that is enough like English that we wouldn't have noticed much of a difference. Now, I suppose early on there were threats from the French, but realistically they weren't in a position to control the New World. Besides, French is a much prettier language than English. It's a romance language after all. We might be better off speaking French. The French would be better off. If you want to go way back, I suppose there was a threat of Danish or Swedish or some other Nordic language, but I don't know what soldier I would thank for that. Now there is the Civil War ... what do they speak in the South? Was Hitler going to race across the Ocean and impose an even uglier language on us? Was there a real Japanese threat of conquest and colonization? Was Stalin going to flood the United States with Russian speakers after the Soviet Union bested us in battle? Maybe we could have all ended up Arabic speakers, although I'm not sure how.

Reality is such an unromantic downer of a party pooper, but in reality even if we were conquered English would probably survive. Some new words might appear, but by and large conquered peoples in this day and age don't start speaking the language of their conquerors. Conquest doesn't have to mean a change in language.

Personally I'd rather thank Shakespeare for English. Call me crazy. Without Will, I don't think I would want to speak English. And I'd thank my parents and their parents and so on. And I'd throw in a shout out to writers, poets, newspaper publishers, and corporations who have brought the English language to every corner of the globe and made it an indispensable tool for living a normal life in many many places in the world.

And I'd thank teachers ... for this and a lot more.

I'm not against thanking soldiers, anyone who makes sacrifices to help their country and their countrymen deserve our thanks. Of course, these thanks go out to more than just soldiers. Community organizers, politicians, people who work for non-profits, medical researchers, and scientists and inventors have all made equivalent sacrifices.

If we thank soldiers out of guilt because in recent memory we have mistreated them upon their arrival home or because the armed forces are less than representative of our whole society ... we should stop, there are other ways we can deal with all of that.

So, stick to thanking teacher's for English and try recognizing soldiers for who they are, thanking them for what they do, and giving them some help. If you are ambitious, try working to change who becomes a soldier and what it means to be a soldier. You could even try working to recognize contributions of other Americans ... but that might be pushing it.