The Canadian government has agreed to drop its three hour test on English for new immigrants in light of the reaction it elicited from Americans. The language test was designed by British language experts and included a British interpretation as to what is proper or improper English. For example, immigrants were asked to explain what was grammatically incorrect by: “Inflation has increased.” Most Americans were stumped by the sentence and could not determine what was wrong with it. In Great Britain the expression would be: “Inflation has risen.” The Canadian government finally accepted the reality Americans do speak a form of the English language. As the famous British playwright, George Bernard Shaw once put it, “The British and American people are only separated by the existence of a common language.”

Canada will go back to allowing its neighbors to the south providing evidence they speak English. Of course, one can only wonder if Canadians would be able to pass a course written by New Yorkers about the proper use of English in everyday conversation. As the head of the Canadian Bar Association commented about the language exam, the Canadian government “realized the ludicrousness of it.” OK Canadians, what is grammatically incorrect in the following sentence: “I went down to toity toid street.”