tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post9217607616644923339..comments2023-11-18T09:51:52.115+10:30Comments on Medlar Comfits: A circus of common language?anna tambourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-57147148175722544102007-04-13T09:16:00.000+09:302007-04-13T09:16:00.000+09:30Faren, your letter was just the meal I needed. Yes...Faren, your letter was just the meal I needed. Yes, English is already a stew, sometimes for odd snobbish reasons,such as the Anglo colonies (Australia, and how many uncouth others?) calling napkins "serviettes". And it's a great thing that English isn't inflicted with purity inspectors.anna tambourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-83836159487709311422007-04-11T01:36:00.000+09:302007-04-11T01:36:00.000+09:30English is already an incredible polyglot stew, co...English is already an incredible polyglot stew, combining bits of Celtic, Old English, the Latin-based "romance languages," Yiddish, and other borrowings. Slang keeps on mutating, with more borrowings (remember Sixties Americans adopting "fab", and possibly "groovy"?), and the remnants of that nasty old Empire go their own ways. [That goes for both the Brits and the Romans, actually, and maybe more learned types could apply it to the Austro-Hungarian!]<BR/><BR/>Maybe it's just because I review fiction rather than plowing through prose written in Officialese, but I'm not that worried about the state of the language. (I just worry about most everything else....) Trying to solve large crossword puzzles also shows that polyglot thing. Though some annoying compilers insist on setting clues that involve Brazilian mining towns, obscure beasties or flora, and other terms that seem to reside only in puzzle dictionaries, puzzlers are used to French phrases, German words, bits of Latin and other less esoteric stuff. And I don't think there's all *that* much call for "purity of the language," as happens with other tongues -- English hasn't been remotely "pure" since at least 1066!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-26289155066690396012007-04-09T09:27:00.000+09:302007-04-09T09:27:00.000+09:30Woops! Thank you, Tanuja. It's fixed now, with apo...Woops! Thank you, Tanuja. It's fixed now, with apologies to Sailu.anna tambourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-74194320294650858292007-04-09T01:46:00.000+09:302007-04-09T01:46:00.000+09:30Nice article, and sailu is a she, you might want t...Nice article, and sailu is a she, you might want to correct "his homemade cornchips" to "her homemade cornchips". <BR/>Thank you<BR/>TanujaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com