English phrases everywhere

Monday, June 04, 2007 by Dave Winer.

Most Italians don't speak English, not many Americans speak Italian, and most of us are okay. Get into a cab, wave hands, smile, use your fingers for numbers, make big hand gestures, smile some more. You can get by.  

But everywhere you look, on billboards, ads on bus stops, store signs, radio programming, there are little snippets of English everywhere. When I see this, I say the words out loud to the cabbie, with a smile, and say English! And I get back a puzzled look. I'm not sure they see that it is English. 

Remember that next time someone says you have to use a symbol in a program UI, instead of words or an acronym, because people around the world won't understand little phrases in English. It doesn't seem to be true.