True of several languages. English and Welsh in my case have a lot of
common or similar words, especially in technical terminology. Some
non-Welsh speakers take the michael, asking what the Welsh for
Telephone is, for example, since the words are pronounced similarly,
even if the spelling differs. I turn round and ask them what the
English is, since so many modern terms are taken from Greek, Latin or
other base languages. Dictionaries are often necessary to convince
them. I'm sure the same situation exists with other languages, French
for example has many borrowed English (or American perhaps) words,
which in turn go back further. Language is a natural evolution -
accepting borrowed words is a necessity, as is the eventual adotpion
of some of the terms used by teenagers. Some of the ones round here
don't speak either Welsh or English, some weird language I cannot
grasp which probably doesn't exist outside their sphere of friends but
later find their way into Oxford English Dictionaries no doubt.
The development of language can probably be mirrored to the
development of traditions as well. Take the date of Christmas for
example. Most Christians now celebrate Christmas on 25th December and
assume Christ was born in 0 AD or 1AD (can't remember how the
numbering works). In fact, a mix of astronomy calculations and
historical information implies Christ was born about 6BC (for example,
conjunctions of 3 planets around then coincide with the tale of the
wise men following a star to Bethlehem, but the positions of Mars
Jupiter and Saturn coincided with the existing descriptions of what
the wise men saw which lead them to Christ....in 2,000 years' time
we'll probably have legends of Clive Sinclair following some
mysterious and magical sign which caused him to make ZX80s and kick
off the home computer boom with the arrival of low cost ready to go
computers). And the December 25th date is not accepted as Christ's
birthdate by scholars either, it was the date of a major Roman and
pagan festival (SUN rather than SON) which gave them an excuse to
party and brighten up their lives in what was otherwise a gloomy part
of the year for Europeans. The first Christian ROman Emperor
(Constantine was it?) decided to replace the pagan festival with
something less pagan and more Christian, so made it Christ's birthday
instead, probably knowing that the pagans and largely atheist Romans
would probably wouldn't mind as they could accept it as a reason to
continue partying at that time of year. So, somewhere between 300 and
400 years after Christ's birth, his birthday moved to 25th December!
And so the roots of the modern Christmas which we often describe as
too commercial and not religious enough in fact goes back to its roots
in some ways as a bit of an excuse for a party to brighten upa not
very nice time of year.
Not everything is what it always seems, I certainly didn't believe the
above when I first read it, but having read it many times since in
many places, I sort of accept it in general terms, especially as I'm
not very religious. So, the moral is clear...tell me something often
enough and I might believe it ;-)
"QPC2 users will have TCP/Ip access by christmas"
Say that often enough, it might come true (Marcel might just hear you)
;-)
Can we propose the addition of the verb "QLing" (to QL, have QLed,
will QL, and all forms thereof) to the OED because it's used by QLers
worldwide?
(Struggling to get back on topic!)
Dilwyn Jones
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