Craig Welch wrote:
David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*) wrote:

Extremely popular is meaningless. In the US, for example, which is
the most populous English speaking country in the world, high school
students are now learning Spanish at a rate almost 4 times that of
French.

The US is not the most populous English speaking country in the world.

I think at this point a reasonable rebuttal would go on to say something
like "The country with that honor is X, and my source for that
information is Y."

So here's what I consider a reasonable rebuttal to your rebuttal:

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top...eaker-map.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

You'll note that both web sites list the US as the country with the most
native speakers of English. At this point the typical Usenet rebuttal to
my post would be to say something like "Yes, but I meant to include
people for whom English is a second language, and my source is the same
Wikipedia page you reference. You'll note that it lists India as the
country with the most speakers of English, with China the second largest."

(I thought I'd save time by doing both halves of the dialogue. :-))