Re: [OT] English language [was:Re: OpenOffice.org - how to install additional languages?]
On 04/03/2011 04:55 PM, Heddle Weaver wrote:
On 4 April 2011 06:17, Ron Johnson<ron.l.johnson@cox.net> wrote:
On 04/03/2011 02:54 PM, David Jardine wrote:
On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 03:08:55PM -0400, Doug wrote:
[snip]
What populist propaganda have you been reading? How do they say
"Disneyland" in French?
Terre de Disney?
Terre de Souris?
I don't think they have, 'Disneyland'.
You're kidding, right? http://idf.disneylandparis.fr/ It's only been
open for 20 years.
If English, either British or American, had such an academy, we
would still be speaking the
language of Henry VIII! And we would never have had the opportunity
to get rid of the French
spelling of things like "centre."
... or "table" ? Come on! A nationalistic dictionary compiler (anti-
British
Webster completed his /American Dictionary/ while at U. Cambridge. Would an
anti-Brit really go to England to do his work?
To study the enemy and sow dissension.
Snicker.
rather than anti-French) caught the mood of the times and you all
lapped it up.
That can only happen when there's no canon. spelling is in flux.
You don't even use capital letters at the beginning of sentences any more.
My children do.
I don't know if England had its own xenophobic equivalents,
but I think the English would be less likely to accept changes of spelling
decreed from above.
Above? Webster didn't get his dictionary mandated by the government.
Anyway, two words: Samuel Johnson.
He just cleaned up the mess that the French, Germans and Romans had made of
the language.
On the contrary. Johnson added "re" because of his Francophilia.
The French may hate everything English, but those of us who speak
any variety of English
appreciate its variety, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
But is it _our_ language any more?
Not after you beggared yourself after the two World Wars.
That wouldn't have mattered if you lot hadn't stolen America from us.
Telling Englishmen that they're Englishmen but don't have the rights of
Englishmen isn't the brightest way to hold together your Empire.
--
"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure
the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally
corrupt."
Samuel Adams, essay in The Public Advertiser, 1749
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