@jayles: Thanks! "Obgleich, Sie Recht haben" >> yes, very awful!

""Dennoch" can mean 'nonetheless', 'however', "all the same", "yet" among others, and "aber dennoch" means "even so". It is quite a handy adverb to know.

"Although I made a fragmented sentence, my meaning was understood."

Verbindlichsten Dank, Herr Lehrer.;-p

@jayles: "OMG Y am I so picky???" Sie sind ein Lehrer! Jedenfalls danke für den Tipp. Ich weiß es wirklich zu schätzen.

"You are right, though." >> "Sie haben dennoch recht." (too be picky! LOL).

I was saying that AnWulf was right despite the fact that I thought Stanmund was talking about the use of the letter W instead of the sound. How is "although" wrong here?

@AnWulf...."I've never heard of the so-called American politic phrase." What phrase?

"As for the 'W's in German ... just remember that they're pronounced as 'V's ... " I think Stanmund was only talking about the use of the letter, not the way it is said. Although, you are right.

And, the reason W is named "double U" is because it was originally "uu" in Old Ænglisc and Old High German (more commonly so). Old Ænglisc used the rune wynn for a time; the Norman writers gave us the form "W".

@jayles: "Not really worth arguing about, although of course in the USA the count might be lower....... "

What makes you write this?

@jayles:

Hungarian kilincs "door handle" < Old French clinche < Frankish *klinka (cf. Ger. Klinke)

The Franks are everywhere!

Instead of L. luxury >> "High on/off the Hog", meaning "affluent and luxurious". A 19th century Americanism.

@Stanmund:

How do you mean "lumpen" in your examples? When one talks about a "lumpen group", lumpen is taken to mean "outcast", not classes of people.

In German, "Lumpenproletariat" is a word coined by Karl Marx. He meant it to mean the "trash of all classes", the lowest tier of the proletariat, the "ragamuffins of society".

"Lumpenproletariat" literally means, "Ragged/Raggedy/ Tattered/ Ragtag/ RiffRaff/ Scoundrel Laboring Class" >> G. der Lumpen ("rags") + L. Proletariat ("poor working class/ wage earners/ lower class").

"Nur Lumpen sind bescheiden, Brave freuen sich der Tat." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Anglishers could be called "lumpen linguists".

All of the following were screwed up by the sound shift:

retain->retention: Retain should truely be spelled 'reten'

contain->containment: Contain should be spelled 'conten'

maintain-> maintenance: Maintian should be spelled 'mainten'

It would cut down confusion if English went back to these original forms.

INFLUENCE >> L. in + L. fluō; The word we have is do to French spelling corruption of the Latin īnfluēns. The 'fluēns' bit is the present participle of L. fluō. English could solve this problem simply by going back to the original Latin spelling, before the French "influens".

"As a native speaker I learnt "contain" and "contents" from context without knowing or thinking about the wordroots"

Isn't this the best way to learn a new tongue anyway? Maybe learning word-roots could be helpful in widening and deepening the understanding, once a student can speak basic English.

"contend with the sheer non-standardness of English."

A big problem with English....all the more reason to get rid of Latin and Greek words. Then, we can also change spelling rules! One can dream...

"15000 plus that a native speaker entering university usually has at their command."

15,000 seems rather high. I have ready many University writings, books, dissertations, asf. What percent of the 15,000 are tech/science words? How many are everyday words?

"Here's one for ya ... luxury - O.Fr. luxurie, from L. luxuria ... Even in Icelandic ... It's luxus."

Instead of L. luxury >> high living, rich living.

"That's a luxurious fabric" >> "That's a rich fabric"