[ANSTHRLD] Linguistics

[Tim McDaniel]

On Sat, 17 May 2003, Diane Rudin <serena1570 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Latin words in that quote (which may also still be retained in French
> for all I know, but they haven't been changed at all from their Latin
> origin):  fuit, per, que, et, de.

fuit: French has "faire", 'to do'
per: closest French form is "pour"
que: French 'what', 'which'
et: French 'and'
de: French 'of'

> I don't see any place that says that French isn't a corrupted form
> of Latin.

Quite so.  As speakers of English, we have no cause to be casting
nasturtiums at any language on grounds of corruption.  "English is the
result of Norman knights trying to pick up Saxon barmaids, and is no
more legitimate than any other result".  Or

    The problem with defending the purity of the English language is
    that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just
    borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages
    down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets
    for new vocabulary.
                                           --James D. Nicoll


Daniel de Lincolia
--
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at panix.com; work is tmcd at us.ibm.com.