Every politician in the United States did not say, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me.”
If one wishes to unquestioningly believe in the ignorance and the pomposity of government officials, it's easy to accept that Sonny Bono said “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me” in arguing for making English the national language. Or that Stromm 38 Thurmond said it. Or Robert Byrd, or former Texas governor Miriam A. Ferguson or Senator Paul Simon or Joint National Committee on Language head Davis Edwards or an “unattributed representative speaking to Dr. Davis Edwards” or “a Southern U.S. senator” or “an Arkansas congressman” or “the Texas congressman” or “an unnamed congressman” or “proponents of the Official English movement” or ... 39
37 Griego begetting gringo is a far more credible etymology than the tale contending that gringo arises from American troops in the Spanish-American War singing a song called “Green Grow the Lilacs” while marching. Sound off! Green grow! Sound off! The lilacs!
,8 Or Strommmmmmmmmmm, during his longer nap.
39 All found from various sources, including God himself. Well, maybe not. But the bullshit- ternet crowd just might swallow that claim.
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Bill Brohaugh
Apparently, the Internet urban mythologists have it that all these people proclaimed thusly at one time or another, or maybe all at once in “We Are the Words!” chorus, with Sonny hitting the high notes. (Too bad it’s the wrong Paul Simon, or we’d have a nice Broadway-ready musical comedy going here.)
Now, someone really did say or write the sentence in question— and others repeated it—otherwise it couldn’t have made it to this page. For all you know, I wrote it. It boils down to—with apologies to “All You Need Is Love”—nothing you can quote that can’t be quoth. But it’s unlikely that this particular babblisciousness was an intentional elocution by a public figure. Some wag, some comedy writer, some member of the “they” of “they say” fame, some single human being hiding in a basement creating all urban myths, likely for minimum wage; this is its likely origin. Multiple attribution/ sources/locations, especially indistinct ones (“proponents”) or, on the other hand, really really specific ones—by one report in the case of this quote, a 2000 Summer Olympics programmer (huh?) who was likely a “repeater”—are heavy clues suggesting urban mythology. This doesn’t automatically assign quotes of confused multiple authorship to the pens of wags, of course. For instance, all the politicians who did not say “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me” apparently did say “Sorry for writing such a long letter—if I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter one.” Someone actually did say something like that, so stop thinking about this silly quote and (if you haven’t already as it appears just a few pages before this) read the entry under “Concision,” page 97.
Why am I working so hard to disprove the “good enough” quote? Because I fear the consequences should that guy in the basement start to promulgate a potentially more accurate version. If the
attitude of “If Aramaic was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for me” takes hold, I’m gonna have serious difficulty first translating this book and then following up with Everything You Know About Aramaic Is Wrong.