English the best language?

tac foley

Here is a part of the story of the discovery of the elements, written by the Sci-Fi author, Poul anderson - in modern-day Anglisc....

For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.

The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff.

The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*. These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called *bulkbits*. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike clefts link in a bulkbit, they make *bindings*. Thus, water is a binding of two waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and chokestuff.

OK so far?

tac

odds_on

tac foley wrote: »

Le Week-end, Le Hot-Dog, Le Walkman and so on?

There is a very strong movement in the French culture today to totally ban the use of Franglais like this.

Quite right, too.

Then we shall give them back all their words. [BTW, that sentence does not have a single bit of French in it, nor does this one.]

tac

But the French are trying to remove the English words from their language.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048323/French-language-website-creates-list-English-words-wants-ban.html

Manach

What makes a language great is the use and diversity of people who speak it. That was culled from the book 'Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin', where the author attributes the global success of latin to how it was the language of empire and Church. English today is the premier language of the web. So long as it retains that ability to be a linga-franca for people to communicate untrammelled by attempts to impose barriers (cough Minister Sherlock) then it will remain great - or else sic transit gloria mundi.

tac foley

odds_on wrote: »

But the French are trying to remove the English words from their language.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048323/French-language-website-creates-list-English-words-wants-ban.html

I thought that's what I wrote in MY post?

tac

pickarooney

It's not as though anyone gives a damn what the AF think about anything. They're pretty much a laughing stock outside of their own arondissement. The Québecois are far more stringent on the use of anglicisms in French.

P. Breathnach

pickarooney wrote: »

... The Québecois are far more stringent on the use of anglicisms in French.

Which difference is reflected in a phrase used in France to refer (somewhat derisively) to Québecois: les chiens chauds.

odds_on

tac foley wrote: »

I thought that's what I wrote in MY post?

tac

Sorry, tac, you did indeed say that the French are trying to ban English words. I must have somehow miss-read your post.

tac foley

odds_on wrote: »

Sorry, tac, you did indeed say that the French are trying to ban English words. I must have somehow miss-read your post.

De nada, mo chara.:)

tac