Happy 4th of July

[greenkoolayd]

tuesday.

thats the sort of little brother that grows up to get dumped on, or to be the toughest sumbitch, ever.

[theinevitable]

I think he grew up into a big asshole.

the last story I know about him is this one where he and my uncle were in Lima, Peru, and were being dicks because they had diplomatic immunity.
The story ended with him holding on to the outside of a metro car, and pissing his ##### because it went into a tunnel and he thought he was going to be crushed.

[jay-ell]

Late to the party, as usual, but huzzah for independence from the crown, y'alls.

I mean, just think about it, if we'd lost the Revolutionary War, we'd all be speaking English right now.

[jaydub]

I remember reading somewheres it was a close match between English and German being the predominant language in the colonies.

[littlefallsmets]

I'm pretty sure that's just an urban legend built around a willful misunderstanding of some old proposed laws, like, willfully misunderstood for political purposes way down the road.

Something along the lines of a law that almost passed that would've had certain public documents automatically published in German parallel to the mainstream English language stuff. Sorta like how you can get Spanish language DMV forms even if your state's Spanish-language population ain't near you.

And down through time that memetically mutated into "German was almost the official language!" which wasn't true at all.

Most of the Founding Fathers spoke English as their first language, the few who didn't still clearly communicated with each other in English.

Official German as a real movement fails all the common sense tests.

[Asherdan]

Poor Germans. Had their shot at the Isles, had their shot at North America and had two full shots at all of Europe and couldn't close the deal on any of them. You gotta feel for the nutty little over achievers, though. No wonder their language is full of hard frissive things.

[CortJstr]

Snopes Power: Activate! http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.asp

[Carlos del Vaca]

We celebrated the 4th by going to the Virginia Aquarium, then watching fireworks from the beach.  Good stuff.

When we got home, we were pleased to discover that the neighbors across the street either toned down their annual fireworks display, or actually came over and cleaned up our yard after they were done.  Bottom line, I will spend much less time picking fireworks debris out of my lawn than in years past, and that is a very good thing.