Sorry, but I missed a day of blogging because I was emotionally spent after the Steelers come-from-behind victory over the Browns. I think the French have a word for this but I can't remember what it is.

This is my shame. I am a great believer in foreign language study in schools. Unfortunately, I have a speech defect that makes speaking foreign languages difficult -- I have an Australian accent. I also had another problem as a teenager -- an odious French teacher who once said to his befuddled class: "What is wrong with you kids? -- you'd think you were learning a foreign language!"

If I had been born here, an American accent would probably have been the same handicap, judging from the many clueless American tourists I have encountered overseas.

An Associated Press story gives hope for the future:

"Foreign language courses are booming on American college campuses, a new study finds, with enrollment in Arabic more than doubling from 2002 to 2006.

"The latest figures from the Modern Language Association of America, released Tuesday, reflect a major push toward internationalization on college campuses, more government support for language study and simply more interest from students. Over four years, total enrollment in language courses has grown 12.9 percent.

"Spanish remains the most popular subject, with more than 823,000 students enrolled -- up 10.3 percent since 2002 and nearly four times higher than No. 2 French.

"But Arabic is the fastest-growing major language, breaking the top 10 for the first time with just under 24,000 enrollments, compared to about 10,600 in 2002. The number of institutions offering Arabic has nearly doubled to 466, including both two- and four-year colleges."

All this is to the good, especially the study of Arabic. After all, how does one say: "Be democratic or we'll shoot you?"

By the way, my French teacher was so odious that he went on to become one of Australia's most famous radio talk show hosts.

First Published: November 13, 2007, 10:45 p.m.