Arggghhh - No, no, Ryk Spoor!

[omk3]

Okay, it makes some kind of sense.
It also proves that this version of the word is now yours, so sticking to the greek rules doesn't apply.

[fjtorres]

Uh, Harry, you do realize Spoor and Flint are writing in American, not in English, right?

(And yes, BOUNDARY is very good in the Arthur C. Clark tradition. The follow-up, THRESHOLD is also pretty good. I even sprung for the ARC.)

[HarryT]

Yes, I'm really enjoying the book, this quibble aside. As you say, it has a rather similar feel to Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama".

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.

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.

[Xanthe]

I prefer octopi over the other choices. It's more fun to say, and there are just certain words where adding an "i" as a plural ending is quicker and more understandable. American English is a language that goes with the flow, absorbs words and makes them its own based upon popular pronunciation.

[Critteranne]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My objection to it in this particular case is not its common (mis)usage in everyday speech, but the fact that Mr. Spoor has a paleontologist use it in a conversation with a professional colleague. Regardless of its everyday "misuse", I'm absolutely certain that a professional in the field would not get it wrong.

As someone who edits highly technical articles, my only response to this is...


I've seen scientists spell genus and species names wrong, spell the names of chemicals wrong, spell their own e-mail addresses wrong... And yes, they've spelled the names of co-authors wrong. Le sigh.

And then of course there are terms that are spelled more than one way in the same field. For example, at my first job, our resident hydrologist preferred "ground water" while many of the other scientists kept trying o change it to "groundwater." Eventually he decided they were right after all, so we had to update a lot of documents.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

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.?

The Ministry of Culture does not make grammar rules. The only thing it did, and that was in the eighties, was make a law that says any foreign language words in an advertisement must be translated. That doesn't include foreign words that have been assimilated into the French language, it means mostly mottoes and catchphrases, such as "Just do it".

Many French intellectuals resent the "invasion" of the French language by English (American, really) words. Obviously this is all mixed up with political issues, and there are some romantic notions about defending the French culture and French language around the World, presumably as a way to counteract the American hegemony.

To get back to the language issue itself, it's only natural that American words are imported along with American-born ideas or practices. Often though, there is already a French word expressing pretty much the same concept, and that is the annoying part. But that's how languages live and evolve, and the interesting part is that a foreign word never takes the place of a local word (although I suppose that also happens, over several generations). Rather, both words coexist and take on slightly different meanings. That's what happened in English with many French words imported by the Normans. And that's what is happening to American words in France now.

[FlorenceArt]

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/i...hp?date=052710

[omk3]

Computer words are one good example of american words entering the greek language. We also 'google'(that's not even a word, I know, but we even use it with greek verb inflections) and 'browse' and 'download' and 'format'. Computers themselves can be 'pc', 'computer' or the greek word for it, υπολογιστές. Of course software has to be translated to be accessible to everyone, and there are very heated debates as to what to call each term. Most of the english terms used have of course a direct translation in greek, but they don't always make sense in the particular context.

I always thought that greek software translations were badly done, but having tried to translate a firmware or three here, I realize that it's just too difficult to find translations that sound natural, and that's because most of us are already used to the english terms. But then I remember some terms that sounded downright outlandish in the 80s-90's but are now in common usage, preferred over the english ones. Language moves in mysterious ways

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

It can be very frustrating for a French reader though, seeing all those French words used "wrong" in English. Of course it's not really wrong, but it feels wrong to me.

I remembered another example: fantasy writers seem to be rather fond of the word "dais". That puzzled me at first, because in French a dais is a kind of canopy, something that protects from the sun. At first it was rather surprising to read that you put people and things on the dais, and not under it.

[Laine]

In high school in England in the 60s I was taught that all 3 versions of the plural of octopus were correct. So I think we could cut Rik Spoor some slack. I generally tended to believe what my teachers told me. And my school was a selective grammar school.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Laine

In high school in England in the 60s I was taught that all 3 versions of the plural of octopus were correct. So I think we could cut Rik Spoor some slack. I generally tended to believe what my teachers told me. And my school was a selective grammar school.

As I said earlier in this thread, Laine, both the Oxford and Chambers dictionaries disapprove of "octopi" - in fact Chambers specifically says that it's wrong.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

I prefer octopi over the other choices. It's more fun to say, ...

That's what clinches it for me too!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

That's what clinches it for me too!

I assume your next action will be to visit your local travel agent and plan a trip to the antipi?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I assume your next action will be to visit your local travel agent and plan a trip to the antipi?

Are there octopi there; or perhaps a hippopotami or two?