Donald Trump praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for his strong grasp of the English language on Wednesday. But the African leader was educated in Liberia, where English is the official language.
As he hosted five African leaders at the White House, Trump asked Boakai: “Such good English, it’s beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?”
Boakai informed Trump of his place of education, prompting Trump to express his curiosity. “That’s very interesting,” he said, “I have people at this table who can’t speak nearly as well.”
Several Liberians voiced their offense over Trump’s comment to Boakai, given the US president’s past remarks on African countries and the colonial legacy left by the US organization in Liberia.
“I felt insulted because our country is an English-speaking country,” Archie Tamel Harris, a Liberian youth advocate, told CNN.
Believe me, it’s not just Americans. No one outside of English nobility speaks anywhere near “the King’s English”. And no one should feel like they have to. Honestly, some English accents are significantly less intelligible than those that learned it as a foreign language. As long as the giver and receivers understand what’s being said, then I see no real problems.
I am an anomaly. I was brought up by my mother, a British WWII war bride who married a Canadian soldier and moved to Canada with him. She would only let me speak the “Queen‘s English“. Oh, and I had to watch Jeopardy every single day for eight years.
I was not even allowed to use contractions.
The worst part was that she never taught me the rules that allowed me to speak very well, but I could not explain how I spoke very well. Got me in quite a bit of trouble when younger.
I guess knowing tense and other stuff exists it saddens me that people are no longer as descriptive and personal as they used to be decades ago.
Well, that’s… definitely interesting. Don’t quite know what to say about that.