Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
In French we have a simple rule: any word imported from a foreign language becomes a French word, and follows French rules for forming a plural (just add an s at the end). Therefore, the plural of scénario is scénarios. Simple. Though of course there are always people trying to look clever by using scenarii. Also note the accent, which I don't suppose exists in the original language (Italian I assume).
Seems much simpler and practical to me. How are we supposed to know and apply the grammatical rules of all the languages we borrow from? And, as Harry's example shows, how are we even supposed to know which language we're borrowing from?
Most words change meaning when they hop from one language to another, why should we insist that they are still foreign words? They are not, they are French (in my case), or English, words with a foreign origin.
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So the French Ministry of Culture is now O.K. with relatively new English words (e.g. software) becoming of common usage in France as opposed to native [French] words coined as alternatives? Or maybe that whole supposed effort was made into more here in the U.S. media than was ever reality? Or maybe it was during the whole “Freedom Fries” nonsense here in the U.S.? I feel language has always been very fluid; just look at the varied etymology of English words.
My main objection to octopi is that it sounds to close to how a Southerner or Texan would pronounce occupy. Like George W. Bush. Eight years as head of the country with the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world and he never learned how to pronounce nuclear.
Sometimes pronunciation is everything. Many years ago when I was a grad student we had an English student studying for a Masters degree in our department. On a trip home he invited several of us to make the trip with him and stay at his parents farm in Northern England. His father drove down to London to pick us all up and on the trip up the M-1 we stopped to eat at a commercial rest stop. As an aside I was surprised at how similar that facility was to those in the U.S.; I thought I could have been on the N.J. Turnpike. So anyway I ordered a hamburger in my perfectly good American English and was quite surprised when the waitress delivered up eggs and something like Canadian Bacon.
Cool discussion I must say as I learned a few new things. I just had to look up the etymology of pea.