Of Citizenship and Identity

National Review Online posts a delightful piece by former Ladies Home Journal editor Myrna Blythe on the new test for citizenship in Great Britain. It's timely for multiple reasons: the French riots, the problem of immigration in the US, the question of national identity in an age of radical Islamic ideology. But it's also an amusing comparison of British and American notions of what citizenship entails.

We tease you with a quotation:

For example there is one [question] that asks (and I am not kidding): "What should you do if you spill someone's pint in the pub?" The wrong answers are: "Dry their wet shirt with your own." Or "Prepare for a fight in the car park" or "Run away from the pub." The right answer: "Offer to buy the person another pint." And, no, the test was not written by Monty Python.

We add to Ms. Blythe's observations that the test disrespects the language of Shakespeare and Milton with its abominable use of the plural "their" to refer to the singular "someone's."