The English Language!
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"English doesn't just borrow words from other languages; it follows them down dark alleyways, knocks them unconscious, then rifles their pockets for loose vocabulary."
James D. NicollHere's part of a fascinating/hilarious clip from the TV series Mongrel Nation, in which Eddy Izzard goes over to Friesland on the basis that if he speaks Old English then the Frieslanders ought to be able to understand him 'cause that's were many of the English originally came from. He's attempting to buy a little brown cow.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34 -
my two favourite english words are:
Doppelgänger and Schadenfreude
...because these are so typical German words that it sounds riddiculous, if they appear in an english sencence
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This thread is soooooo zeitgeisty!
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right you are Jackson. and it makes me feel terrible Weltschmerz
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Jakob, my Doppelganger thanks you for the Schadenfreude induced by your Weltschmertz.
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you sounded almost German, Alan
now, if your Doppelgänger encounters a Poltergeist in a Kindergarten, eating Bratwurst with Sauerkraut - well that would be quite a Gedankenexperiment!
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I'm from Liverpool, so I much prefer Scouse to Sauerkraut. Now there's a word that's gone the other way....even if it is spelt Labskaus.
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if we are to really examine the idiosyncrasies, then i think now would be a good time to bring up the subject of the serial (aka oxford) comma.
this is a far better and more concise explaination that i could ever come up with.
pav
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@plot-paris said:
right you are Jackson. and it makes me feel terrible Weltschmerz
Some Gestalt therapy'll work wonders.
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Well, I speak english, however the serial comma explanation on Wikipedia was somewhere over my head. In fact it was out in orbit over my head. We are making progress though. Consider the period: three sylables to identify a single small point. Now, it is no longer a period; it is a "dot" - isn't that better? And the elegant asterisk has been elevated to a star (speaking of extraterrestrial things).
That's all I have to say about that.
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LOl.
Welcome Steve.
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@alan fraser said:
I'm from Liverpool, so I much prefer Scouse to Sauerkraut. Now there's a word that's gone the other way....even if it is spelt Labskaus.
but the word Labskaus will only be farmiliar to people living in the very north of Germany...
I am from the south, hence I prefer Sauerkraut.
but back to English Language: I came to London because I love the sound of British Englis. Only I discovered that there are so many different accents it is barely justified to speak of a British English (my 30 colleagues speak almost 30 different accents!)
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Thank you, Pete. Still fumbling around this website - feeling kind of primitive and ignorant, but having a good time.
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I am reminded of the wisdom of the Great Ralph Wiggam. . .
Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!
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@frederik said:
Have you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?;)
Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs? Shouldn't they be wearing nightgowns?
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety-one? -
@unknownuser said:
@frederik said:
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety-one?
i can actually answer this one.
because it isn't spelt O-N-E-T-Y O-N-E, it's spelt E-L-E-V-E-N
and thus prounouncing it this way would make no sense...he he
pav
(i await people posting words that aren't spelt the way are pronounced!)
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Rhino...
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Rhino, a shortened form of rhinoceros.
An animal well know for being the richest in the world! -
WELCOME STEVE.
Good to see you are up and running Steve, Avatar and all. I'm
still here in Mountain View but not for much longer. Heading
back in a couple of hours.Mike
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names of English cities that are pronounced in a funny way:
Gloucester ("Gloster")
Leicester...
Woocester...Edinburgh ("Edinburuh")
all trap holes for foreigners...
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