Bonne fête Johanbgoot!

[krissel]

Just a few things still hanging around the old brain since I took French in high school (about 45 years ago).  

[Xairbusdriver]

I had French in Kindergarten! 65+ years ago! At least that's what my mom always told me, I haven't the foggiest recollection of any words I might have "learned!" Only ones I can use now are "Cordon" and "Bleu," usually together and in that order. But it is a beautiful language to my ears!

[Johanbgoot]

Well XABD, have you ever kept a rendez-vous, had a tête à tête, been in a mènage à trois (you don't have to admit to this one) then you've used french without knowing it.  You would be surprized at how many words are french.  Beef comes from boeuf, veal from veau, mutton from mouton; and English is also notorious for importing other language words into it directly i.e. kangaroo.

TTFN

Johan

[Highmac]

English is what Esperanto aspired to be....

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

have you ever kept a rendez-vous, had a tête à tête, been in a mènage à trois

Well, we've had two dogs and now have a cat. But I can't say we've ever kept a rendez-vous. Can they be house broken? Not sure about that second one. I try to avoid letters with things growing out of them! Now that mènage thing...Is that the fluffy stuff made from whipped eggs that is put on top of many pies? I'm not fond of that stuff. Even if it does come in three layers.

You are correct, of course, English borrows/steals from any language found laying around! Of course, once adopted by Americans, the spellings are 'normalized' from the way the "Islands" usually misspell things...

And how many languages end up with many words spelled exactly the same but with completely different meanings?! Wind (that blows), wind (a watch)! Bark (on a tree) & bark (dog sound), bear (the animal) & bear (the pain of English!). Et cetera ("borrowed from Latin")(I suppose that means South America, or would it be Spain...).

[Highmac]

... or a collection of letters with different sounds: cough, bough (of a tree), through (OK, so you abbreviate it to thru), rough, fought, though...

Enough already

[krissel]

And for all those words that have a soft sounding "g"...

genre, rouge, garage, mirage, barrage...

[kimmer]

Words that sound the same, are spelled differently and mean totally different things:

pear, pair and pare
their, there and they're
read and red

and so on ....

[pauline]

then there is the mis spelling of words between 2 countries that speak the same language, colour-color, centre-center,
liquorice -licorice, criticise-criticize .....

[Johanbgoot]

And of course we do the same things in French: Vers 18:00 j'ai trouvé un ver dans ma verre verte.  About 6 pm I found a worm in my green glass.

One thing the French have is L'académie française, it is the defining institution as to how French is spelt and written, and boy do they get their knitters in a twist sometimes, they argue over the use of Le or La, i.e., the word judge is le juge so how do you say Mr Justice Smith M. le juge Smith, but what if it is Madam Justice Smith, Mme. le juge Smith but it Mme. le juge is a contradiction. We in canada use Mme. La juge but l'académie frowns upon this as their rulings and recommendations are not binding.

[krissel]

I've learned so much from TS members.  

[Highmac]

QUOTE(Johanbgoot @ Sep 9 2009, 03:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...We in canada use Mme. La juge but l'académie frowns upon this as their rulings and recommendations are not binding.

So Canadians do to French what the Americans do to English    

Even here, though, English has changed a lot since I left school. One small example of quite a recent change: 'Their' is being used instead of 'his/her', 'he/she' when both genders are being included in a sentence. Grammatically incorrect but it looks a lot tidier in print and doesn't stop the reader in their tracks in the same way. (Still stops me, but I'm older and haven't really accepted it yet!)

[Xairbusdriver]

I always thought of all forms of "they" as unisex (even before that term was even invented!). It simply referred to the previously identified person(s), regardless of their gender. What gets my goat (although I really don't need him, anymore) are people who don't seem able to see/know the difference between "their," "they're" and "there!" I believe it is developed by the lack of reading and too much audio/video input! What is their problem?! They're driving me crazy! And it's a short trip there for me, anyway!