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Subject: Re: Language and the Internet ( 23 of 58 )
Posted by Douglas Adams

>With all respect to Mr. Adams, I would ascribe the
>popularity of English as the new lingua franca to
>American movies and television shows, not the Beatles.
>They probably had some impact, but the movies and
>television are an ongoing phenomenon.

I think that the impact of American movies and TV shows was implicit in my second paragraph (though I didn't mean the word 'colonialism' to sound quite as perjorative as perhaps it does). I didn't dwell on it because it seems to me to be stating the extremely obvious - particularly because it is, as you say, ongoing.

I made the point about the Beatles because it is less immediately obvious and had its greatest impact over three decades ago. It's worth remembering exactly how great that impact was.
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