Federal Agencies Getting Rid Of ‘Press 1 For English’

Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced that the Department of Justice will begin implementing President Trump’s March executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.
“The Department of Justice will lead a coordinated effort across federal agencies to minimize non-essential multilingual services, redirect resources toward English-language education and assimilation, and ensure legal compliance with the Executive Order through targeted measures where necessary,” said a press release from the Justice Department.
Saying the changes will “promote assimilation over division,” Bondi noted, “The Department of Justice will lead the effort to … eliminate wasteful virtue-signaling policies across government agencies.”
The specific guidelines were posted on the DOJ website*.

The DOJ promised to respect “linguistic diversity” but “prioritize English proficiency to empower new Americans and strengthen civic unity.”
The new guidelines effectively mean that wherever possible, federal agencies will be providing services only in English.
Blaze Media reports that the Justice Department is also looking to eliminate initiatives from a Clinton-era executive order which introduced limited English proficiency programs, or LEPs.
The Trump administration said that LEPs often prioritized “multilingualism over English proficiency among new Americans” and “could impede assimilation and strain resources.”
Therefore, the government is suspending operations of the LEP.gov website and will stop any letters, videos, or other training materials from being produced. These are likely to be replaced with new ones that reflect Trump’s executive order.

*https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1407776/dl?inline=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Signs Order

Announcing new guidance to Enforce English Proficiency Requirement for Truckers
“America first means safety first”
AUSTIN, TX - Today, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Sean P. Duffy signed an order at a trucking event in Austin announcing new guidelines to strengthen English language enforcement for commercial truck operators. Under the new guidance, commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers who fail to comply with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) longstanding English-language proficiency (ELP) requirements will be placed out-of-service.  
“America First means safety first. Americans are a lot safer on roads alongside truckers who can understand and interpret our traffic signs. This common-sense change ensures the penalty for failure to comply is more than a slap on the wrist,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy.
This new guidance is in line with the President’s April 2025 Executive Order to strengthen highway safety by ensuring that all commercial drivers are properly qualified and proficient in English, our national language.
In April, Secretary Duffy announced steps to rescind a dangerous Obama-era policy that dismissed ELP requirements for CMV drivers.  
Additional Background:
President Donald Trump and Secretary Duffy believe that proficiency in English is a commonsense, non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers, as they should be able to read and understand traffic signs; communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station personnel; and provide and receive feedback and directions in English.
FMCSA regulations provide that a driver unable to sufficiently read or speak English or understand highway traffic signs and signals is not qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle. However, in 2016, the Obama administration directed inspectors not to place CMV drivers out-of-service for such violations. The failure to adequately enforce driver qualification standards poses serious safety concerns and increases the likelihood of a crash.
Secretary Duffy thanks the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance for its prompt cooperation following the President’s Executive Order. Beginning June 25, 2025, ELP violations will once again be included in the out-of-service criteria—ensuring consistent, nationwide enforcement and reaffirming the Department’s unwavering commitment to roadway safety.

Designating English As The Official Language Of The United States

English: Dost Thou Speaketh It?

 

 

Silent Letter Day

Pronouncing words like that will give you hemorr-h-oids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOUqHr9tcVY

 Why ’Tock-Tick’ doesn’t sound right to your ears.

The language rules we know – but don’t know we know.

Ever wonder why we say tick-tock, not tock-tick, or ding-dong, not dong-ding, King-Kong, not Kong-King?
Turns out it is one of the unwritten rules of English that native speakers know without knowing.
The rule is ‘If there are three consecutive words then the order has to go I, A, then O. If there are two words then the first one is I followed by either A or O.’ Mish-mash, chit-chat,dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic-tac, sing-song, ding-dong, ping-pong.
There’s another unwritten rule at work in the name Little Red Riding Hood.
Adjectives in English must be written in this order: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, noun.
So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife … but if you mess with word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.
That explains why we say “little green men” not “green little men,” but “Big Bad Wolf” sounds like a gross violation of the ‘opinion (bad), size (big), noun (wolf) rule, right? Not if you remember the ‘I, A, O order rule.
That rule seems inviolable: All four of a horse’s feet make exactly the same sound, but we always say ‘clip-clop’ never ‘clop-clip.’
This rule even has a technical name, if you care to know it, the rule of ablaut reduplication, but life is simpler knowing that you know the rule without knowing it.
You are utterly familiar with the rule of ablaut reduplication. You’ve been using it all your life. It’s just that you’ve never heard of it. But if somebody said the words zag-zig, or ‘cross-criss you would know, deep down in your loins, that they were breaking a sacred rule of language. You just wouldn’t know which one.
Reduplication in linguistics is when you repeat a word, sometimes with an altered consonant (lovey-dovey, fuddy-duddy, nitty-gritty), and sometimes with an altered vowel: bish-bash-bosh, ding-dang-dong.

This was almost all excerpts from a 2016 article in BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know

I love doing research into the cluster that is the English language ... for example: