Lost languages

According to the Ripley's - Believe it or Not section in the San Antonio Express yesterday

'The world has about 7,000 different languages and the lesser-used ones disappear at a rate of 1 every 2 weeks'

Hmmm, I think I understand that completely......just think about it. When was the last time that YOU used proper English? Come on, no phrases like, "uh huh", yuppers, yeah, say what, get out of here, shuuuut up (oh I love hearing that one out of the mouths of sales people, and believe me, I have heard it more than enough times from quite a few). Now, before I get bombarded with a kazillion comments (shoot I am truly thrilled with receiving one comment, but a kazillion would probably overwhelm me), I am sure that you can find all of the above sayings or words in what ever dictionary you are going to grab to use to prove me wrong......now remember, I didn't say hearing or using words that are in the dictionaries, I asked "using proper English"......I'm not throwing rocks, I am not a puritan of words.........I put in and use slang all of the time.........but wouldn't it be nice to just hear people speak to each other politely and nicely?

Now I am not going to even go into English as a second language area............yikes that opens up whole new and totally debatable topic. I state (notice I did not say confess or admit), I state, that I believe that if you live in America, the Unites States of America, the USA, that you should be held accountable to learn the language. Amen. I admit that I am so limited in any usage of a second language that is it really embarrassing (though once in awhile I will just amaze myself when instructions come in 18 jabillion languages for opening up a bottle of mouth wash, that I can understand quite a bit of the French.....now don't challenge me to a conversation, because you would win and I would be standing there with my mouth open, waiting to catch the next flying insect!) Every once in awhile I make the statement, " I should learn to speak Spanish." and onto the next subject (shoot, rarely does anyone listen to me when I am babbling on here), so I don't get a whole bunch of flack about repeating myself. Now over Memorial Day week-end I had the television on to,hmmmmmm, either TBS, or TNT.........shoot I don't remember (so if I can't remember that from a week ago, why am I going to try to learn a new language......now that alone should be a big red arrow for my brain!!!!!!) and they were advertising some tape or cd that even the State Department uses for learning a second language...........hmmmm, so maybe it's a good thing that $$ is tight, because I didn't order it................but I was sure tempted.....I was. I was more tempted to look into that, then I was about finding those cute little red shoes............