[G4] Re: English

[Eric Wood]

I believe many languages include a lot of strange grammar - "I get to go
fishing," for instance. To get is simply to receive, isn't it? Yet now,
to state that sentence in another way would likely sound awkward, mainly
because you can't simply say "I will (or shall) go fishing," as then you
lose a hint of meaning in the former statement - one of achievement, of
pleasure at the prospect.

One of my greatest disappointments with American English is the use -ize
in place of -ise. It's inconsistent at this point, since there are still
some hold-outs with the -ise ending. I dread seeing them transformed by
future ignorance, and I am aghast at those which are misspelled and can
never be recovered.

And I will indeed blame the french-speaking Normans, because it fits my
theory. English underwent some heavy transformations to become what it
is today, and at least most of it is French in nature. French and Latin,
with some sprinklings of Greek. And our "bad," four-letter words are
Germanic in origin. I believe they came from the hated Saxons and were
suppressed in high society, just as all Germanic language came to be.

Sonst hab' ich nichts zu sagen :) Bis später!

Eric

On Tue, 2007-06-19 at 10:24 -0400, Al Poulin wrote:
> On Jun 19, 2007, at 6:06 AM, g4-request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com 
> wrote:
> >
> > Message: 6
> > Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:08:34 -0700
> > From: Earle Jones <earle.jones at comcast.net>
> 
> > Just by coincidence, the message following your message began (in
> > response to a question about the new Safari browser):
> >
> >     its a *beta* wait until the next rev. dont lose sleep.
> >     mine crashed constantly.  i just axed it. why worry?
> >
> > How many violations would one ticket here?
> 
> Here, there is one saving feature -- the person is communicating good 
> information.  We should not put up a brick wall to this.  As for the 
> consistent use of lower case, I remember how an excellent contributor 
> of technical information on another  Macintosh e-list consistently used 
> lower case.  His explanation in response to many complaints was that he 
> has a disability analogous to dyslexia and that to type otherwise would 
> be extremely difficult and time consuming.
> 
> This discussion has transmuted itself from someone's problem with OS-9 
> on an MDD machine, through "Classic or Native" to "English."  English 
> itself is in constant change, sometimes of necessity.  Wikipedia.com is 
> an excellent resource for definitions.   While participating in peer 
> reviews of medical research proposals concerning cancer, as a layman in 
> that field, I found that biochemists and other PhD scientists who work 
> the human genome and bodily cell functions have borrowed familiar terms 
> from our somewhat older disciplines of computer science and 
> electronics.  Sometimes the new meanings were almost counter-intuitive. 
>   Going beyond the glossary of terms supplied by the peer review 
> organization meant finding other resources.
> 
> But what really gripes me is when American speakers and writers do not 
> say what they mean.  A lady the other day said that our neighborhood's 
> red foxes "go to the bathroom like dogs."  Say what?  My dogs "go" 
> outdoors.  The English, the Irish, and Europeans say "toilet."  Their 
> "restrooms" are "toilets."  Indeed, I never go to a "restroom" to rest. 
>   And why must Americans use "bathroom" for places where one cannot take 
> a bath or shower?  I guess some day we'll see "Bathroom" on the side 
> doors of our gasoline stations.
> 
> Al Poulin
> 
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