Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
well... the Académie is big on preserving the language, yes ; but that is not so much from the invention of words (there is an incredibly rich and varied tradition of inventive argot languages in french and litterary mozzling of the finest kind) as it is from the "contamination" of french by english words. on the one hand, this is silly, because languages are always borrowing from other languages and it enriches them ; on the other hand, it can be a bit comprehensible, because it's true that sometimes out of laziness or because it's "hype" people will begin to use an english word for something which already has a perfectly good (sometimes better) name in french (we had a discussion about this phenomenon too before... see the despised " bullet points"). they tried to keep us from saying "weekend" (fin de semaine), "hotdog" (chien chaud), "email" (courriel), "spam" (pourriel). it didn't work out for them. they never tried to prevent anyone from saying "trucmuche" or "chouraver" (both of them are made up words which have become commonplace, the second one from the "javanese" slang language which consisted of adding the syllable "av" in the middle of the word ; the real word is "chourer". you scoff perhaps but it can be effective enough to confuse the cops).
but my point is, there is a long and rich tradition of linguistic invention in french. we take pride in it. |
Hmmm .... well, that must be tough for them. I mean, so much of English is taken from French, I wouldn't even know where to divide the two languages up. You could very easily have a French based word, that has come into common use in English, gets corrupted in English (think maison and mansion), and then sneaks into English slang from there. So, wouldn't it sort of be full circle if it wandered back into France??
The hotdog thing I really don't get. I mean a hotdog is NOT a hot dog. To force a literal translation on the French people is just plain mean spirited.
Also, I don't know how many languages have gerunds, but really, I think that is one of the best things going about the English language. They make for such a compact way of expressing yourself.
Of course, I suppose that's why English is not known as the language of romance .... it does tend to be rather cut to the chase.
