Many years ago, a guy I’d known when I was in school in Brussels came to the States, and I was astonished to discover that he was fluent in English. During my time in Belgium, we had spoken only in French. Why hadn’t he let me know—especially since my French, though fluent, was not exactly native? “You know, I’m a funny guy,” he said, “or I like to think I am. But in English, I cannot play with the language.”
That’s exactly my experience in the two other languages I speak passably, and it informs my response to the news making the rounds, complete with video, of Brazilian schoolchildren correcting celebrities’ tweets. The children are adorable, of course, and the celebrities seem mostly to be dimwits. (That is, assuming they are celebrities. Whether these glitzy folks are actually tweeting or the 140 characters are coming from their minions or their fan clubs is an…