The old imperialism is good enough

Hugo Chavez calls out the language police:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez's government is taking its battle against U.S. "imperialism" into Venezuelans' dictionaries, urging state phone company workers to avoid English-language business and tech terms.

Through a campaign launched Monday, newly nationalized CANTV hopes to wean employees and others from words like "staff" ("equipo" is preferred), "marketing" ("mercadeo") and "password" ("contrasena").

Stickers and banners printed up by the company exhort Venezuelans to "Say it in Spanish. Say it with pride."

Because we all know Spanish is native to South America.

Modern Spanish is rife with "anglicismos," English words taken directly into Spanish, like internet, click*, and even hot dog - though in the latter case many proud sudamericanos stick with the much more Spanish-sounding perritos calientes. Of course, Americans are quite familiar with tacos and salsa dancing, so fair is fair.

But it is more than a little amusing when tinhorn leftist dictators consider American 'imperialism' in language and technology worth fighting against by hearkening back to the language of those who forcibly enslaved the entire continent for three centuries in search of gold.

Imperialism just ain't what it used to be, I guess.

* pronounced "kleek," I kid you not.