Osteopath, I'm pretty sure -- they do the regular MD stuff plus some more holistic treatment stuff. Actually, I think you might really like an osteopath.

Well, if the English version of SSB has never been adopted as the "official" version, then maybe they do have a case. But it seems to me--and I admit my "reason" is mostly "feeling"--that the "national" anthem should be sung in the language of the governing body--which historically, in the US, is English. There isn't a sovereign nation on Earth, is there, where the national anthem is "officially" sung in more than one language?

I know that anthropologically and geographically, much of the US territories were Spanish before they were states. But the governing body has always been English-speaking, whether for good or bad.

I just don't see why people who come *from* countries with their own anthems in their native language want to come to a different country and sing that country's anthem in their native language. This doesn't happen in any other country and I don't get why it's even an issue here.

The anthem thing doesn't seem like a real issue to me, more a political statement.

France, to pick on that one example, has an incredibly bad record of dealing well with immigration. Like, if your ancestors don't all come from France, you're just not cool enough to be considered French. Obviously, the country sat down and planned out a "we'll continue to be distinctive" plan, with the academy that keeps written French grammar complicated and a thriving film industry and trademarks for Champagne and all, but, the problem with enforced distinctiveness is that people sort of have to assimilate or die be outsiders for life.

The US doesn't have an official language, so there's no legal reason not to have the national anthem in as many languages as you can think of. Legal notices in my city are printed in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and they put little sentences at the bottom (This is important have this translated for you) in Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Haitian, and a couple of languages I don't recognize. Now, that's my city, and I live in Socialist Massachusetts, but.

We don't have a national policy of enforced distinctiveness (and anyway, in a country this geographically and demographically large, I bet it would be impossible), and I'm cool with that. Just as I am cool with the hilarious gymnastics required to make the Star Spangled Banner rhyme in Spanish.

There isn't a sovereign nation on Earth, is there, where the national anthem is "officially" sung in more than one language?

Canada doesn't count?

I'm wondering about Switzerland, too. And South Africa took two different songs and combined them into one, sung in three languages.

Well, I said it was a "feeling." So consider me a reluctant stick-in-the-mud who's getting over it and moving on.

Seriously, thanks for those examples, 'cause you've given me food for thought.

And Canada *always* counts!

I would guess that the official national anthem is sung in different languages in countries that have more than one official language.

I still don't get that singing the national anthem unofficially in Spanish is such a huge insult.

I still don't get that singing the national anthem unofficially in Spanish is such a huge insult.

Oh its not, but its fun to pretend it is and get whitey all worked up and indignant and donatey.

Watch tells time with Cartesian coordinates.