Username
jayles
Member Since
August 12, 2010
Total number of comments
748
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“Anglish”
- September 26, 2012, 1:07pm
Where I live the state unemployment benefit is called "jobseeker allowance" - and the term "jobseeker" is widely benoted instead of "unemployed" - such is the politically correct reality of life here.
I wonder if "werben/warb/geworben" made it into English is some form?????
“Anglish”
- September 26, 2012, 1:03am
Just to nutshell my points:
1) There must be some overwhelming selling point, some compelling reason for delatinizing English that will spur lede to take it on. What exactly is that?
Appealing to the Saxon in us to stand up is one-sided, and one-eyed - most of us a mix of Celt, Saxon, and Norman. We would become split-minded.
It must be rooted in today's world - not many lede care about what happened a thousand years ago. And in today's world latinate words do get you your next job, your degree, your promotion. We may not like this, but it is the biggest hurdle.
2) We cannot expect Joe Bloggs on the street to bone up on exactly when each word came into English. That is a no-starter.
3) What is the point of getting rid of latinate words if it just leaves us with a hedged-around word-stock?
"Chair" is an everyday word where I come from. "Settle" is a long bench-like piece of furniture, and "stool" is a chair with no back or arms. Taking away "chair", "couch" and maybe "sofa" and "cathedral" just lessens our choices and lessens the richness of the language. Likewise, we may use "put in" instead of "apply" for a job, but we are left with "applicant" and "job application form" which are hard to re-stead. And now "apps" is an everyday word - how many apps on your iPhone?
“Anglish”
- September 25, 2012, 11:14am
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene.html
"In The Tribes of Britain, archaeologist David Miles says around 80 percent of the genetic characteristics of most white Britons have been passed down from a few thousand Ice Age hunters........"
“Anglish”
- September 25, 2012, 3:05am
"DNA studies are beginning to show that the English are mostly
Brythonic (Celtic) in origin; no surprise to anyone who reads about
Boudicca of the Iceni and other tribes which stood up against the
Roman invasion, including the Welsh themselves.
The concept of alien Saxons spread across the English map is proving
to be unfounded. The Saxons came, but they managed to impose their
culture on everyone else, not their bloodlines, which probably only
affected the people in places like East Anglia. Same with the Vikings
in Yorkshire and the Danes in the Thames Valley. The Normans (that were mixed themselves) didn't marry into the people, only into the ruling classes.
Given that, you can see that to talk of the English as an Anglo-Saxon
race is a nonsense. The bulk of English people are Celts or pre-Celtic. "
If this is true then we should be sticking up for Welsh not English.
And English is every bit as elitist and imposed as Norman-French.
Today's English is truly a carrier of English culture - it shows some of them are a snobby lot.
“Anglish”
- September 25, 2012, 2:38am
@Ængelfolc: "APPLY, too, is highly academic, no?"
I think not - apply for a job and so on. I would say it was an everyday business word, like so many Norman-French borrowings.
"My main thought against these words is that they are both after 1066." Yes, true.
My point was that they are equally as well embedded in today's English as the borrowings from latin before 1066 - so why treat them differently?
I do agree the French lede stick up for their own language (and nice French films too).
But shouldn't they toss out all the Frankish words too?
Iceland is different: they were never invaded. (?????)
There is much that could be done to further a sturdier and less academic English - it's a shame Tolkien didn't just write in early middle english - but we need to have clear logic backing up our offerings.
“Anglish”
- September 21, 2012, 5:37pm
"These Latin words have truly become woven into Ænglisc owing to their meaning and high standing in the daily lives of the Ænglisc folk."
So too have many Norman-French words like chair, apply .... so logically why does the same not apply?
"These N.Fr and L words took over from English ones, so why couldn't we switch back to the unseated English words?"
Because so many have disappeared, become lost, and are no longer in a modern wordbook. A shame I agree but nevertheless we must work with what we still have.
"I think the best thing to look at settle on what is true English are the EVERYDAY WORDS." Hmm but wouldn't 'transit lounge', or 'bus station' be an everyday word?
I am not agin the thrust of your thinking; when I said "people don't want Anglish", I was thinking that most lede are not worried about word-roots, they just want to be understood clearly and get on with their lives. So the task is to find some marketable spur to sell our way of thinking.
“Anglish”
- September 10, 2012, 6:36pm
I stumbled upon this list of twin-words:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dual_French_and_Anglo-Saxon_variations
“Anglish”
- September 9, 2012, 6:56pm
'I must gainsay that "...and the like" is doomed; Anglish may be, but Englishing English again, I think, is not.' Yes that is in truth what I meant.
re: suggest/propose - in a business meeting "can I make a suggestion?" much more tentative than "I propose that we.... ". (This can be a pitfall for unwary French speakers).
I haven't worked out a good answer for this in true English.
"despite all the efforts" -> all the struggles/strivings notwithstanding..
"proper" with the meaning of "up to the set standard" is unanswered so far.
amen -> so be it.
" "The people don't want it" - by this I meant that that the middling wight doesn't want to bother with Anglish - it is to bookish, there are more weighty things in life. Many wights would be interested in cleaning up the gobbledegook and making English "plain and simpler", though. (more straightforward and less snobbish)
Any ideas for "disappear" ??
“Anglish”
- August 31, 2012, 6:45pm
Why Anglish and the like are doomed to failure:
1) The people don't want it: despite all efforts since the inkhorn era, there has been little go-forward. Some progress toward plain-speech (which is not quite the same thing).
2) Many Norman-French and some latinate borrowings have become deeply embedded and there are now no proper stand-ins.
3) there are nuances available in the french/latinate borrowings that are hard to make up, for example "suggestion" (open to discussion) and "proposal" (more take-it-leave-it) - hard to mimic with "forelay" "put forward" or "input".
In writing this I cannot easily come up with stand-ins for despite, effort, proper, nuances, mimic and so on. It is too hard unless one spends ages with a thesaurus and etymology. Interesting as an exercise but in the end doomed. All that we can ask is for folk to stick to short words wherever possible. Success is just beyond our grasp.
Questions
Five eggs is too many | July 1, 2013 |
“The plants were withered” Adjective or passive? | August 27, 2013 |
Which sound “normal” to you? | March 31, 2014 |
“it’s the put-er-on-er-er” | April 7, 2014 |
“Anglish”
there is no dole here ..... one must be "actively seeking work" (and prove it).