Re: "Proper" english [off topic]
On Sun, Jan 02, 2000 at 01:25:33AM -0600, Dwayne C . Litzenberger wrote:
> > Met[er] is pronounced Mee-tur, not Meet-ray, so Meter is of course
> > correct. Metre comes from French, but we are speaking English, so
> > staying close to French spellings isn't all that important.
> Wrong. Much of English comes from French, German and Latin. Metre
> is correct (ask any Englishman). *Americans* are the only ones who
> spell things "the other way".
It comes from French, German and Latin, but it is English. If metre
is 'correct', why isn't the name "Petre" instead of "Peter" ? That's
my point - the "re" ending comes from French, but that is no longer
the official language of either England or the US, and "er" is more
logical as an ending from an anglo-saxon pronunciation point of view.
If people wish to poke fun at the dreadful "English" measurement
system we still use in the US, by all means go ahead, but keep your
hands off of my native language:-)
Ciao,
--
David N. Welton -+- davidw@prosa.it -+- http://www.efn.org/~davidw
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