Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Regular v Ordinary
On Wednesday 30 Apr 2014 14:00:40 godzil wrote: Yes that true, lots of English words came from old French, and funnily some word that were lost goes back into French :) But I don't agree, on the origin of Old English it is more a germano-celtic language than a latino-greek one. French clearly come from Latin and Old Greek, like Spanish or Italian. On the contrary, the German language have nearly no roots in Latin and Greek. I wasn't thinking so far back, but yes, Old English did derive from the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others. The words of theirs that we still use are all the little words that no-one ever looks up in a dictionary. I'm not so sure about Celtic though; I think there was very little mixing, and nowadays the remains of Celtic are in Cornish, Welsh and Irish and Scottish Gaelic, not English to any great degree. There ought to be a Breton language descendant of Celtic in north-west France as well, and perhaps there is, but I'll have to leave that to others. Before the Normans (whose ancestors were also from Scandinavia!) the major invader was the Vikings. Surprisingly, although the place is littered with Viking place names, as far as I know few language words survive from that period. There are also many traces of Old German and Dutch, but I still maintain that most of the longer words come down from our long and complicated relationship with France, with scholastic regulation (if that's the word) according to Latin and Greek. Le 2014-04-30 12:47, Peter Humphrey a écrit : The spelling differences you mention are I think a result of attempts to simplify the language by your founding fathers. Wikipedia have a nice article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differenc es (I tried to read it, but now my head is hurting!) I'll have a look at that - thanks. -- Regards Peter
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Regular v Ordinary
On Tuesday 29 Apr 2014 16:05:04 walt wrote: On 04/29/2014 05:49 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: Regular readers* will know... * Off-topic note for American readers: as far as I'm concerned, regular does not mean ordinary. That neologism is even polluting our high streets over here. I've used both of those words all my life but never looked them up in a dictionary. Until today, of course: A thing is ordinary when it is apt to come round in the regular common order or succession of events. [1913 Webster] Seems it goes back a lot further than I realised. Can you give us an example of how we misuse the word regular? (a word I don't ordinarily use ;) I don't suppose it's misuse, just different use, which is fine when separated by a few thousand miles :-) . It just annoys me when I'm offered a regular coffee, when I would have said standard, or medium (size). It's happened particularly since our high streets were flooded with Starbucks and the like. To me, regular is closely associated to regularity, as one might think of in personal habits (sorry!). Or, regular as clockwork is a common phrase and gets my meaning across. -- Regards Peter
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Regular v Ordinary
Le 2014-04-30 09:47, Peter Humphrey a écrit : On Tuesday 29 Apr 2014 16:05:04 walt wrote: On 04/29/2014 05:49 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: I don't suppose it's misuse, just different use, which is fine when separated by a few thousand miles :-) . It just annoys me when I'm offered a regular coffee, when I would have said standard, or medium (size). It's happened particularly since our high streets were flooded with Starbucks and the like. To me, regular is closely associated to regularity, as one might think of in personal habits (sorry!). Or, regular as clockwork is a common phrase and gets my meaning across. I suspect that your habits for regular or ordinary came from French, where the first translation of regular is régulier, habituel which mean that it is something is a habits. And ordinary will be translate to ordinaire that have the means of common, standard. I know that some difference from UK and US English come from the nearby European country (monstly France) (i.e: colour vs color, behaviour vs behavior, etc.)
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Regular v Ordinary
On Wednesday 30 Apr 2014 10:21:11 godzil wrote: I suspect that your habits for regular or ordinary came from French, where the first translation of regular is régulier, habituel which mean that it is something is a habits. And ordinary will be translate to ordinaire that have the means of common, standard. I know that some difference from UK and US English come from the nearby European country (monstly France) (i.e: colour vs color, behaviour vs behavior, etc.) Yes, true, except that habits is not the right word: usage would be better, which in this context in English means custom. Countries being adjacent is not the explanation. I haven't seen an authority on this, but I believe that a good half of English words come from French (as a result of the most recent invasion of these islands in 1066), most of the rest coming from Latin and Greek. (That's now largely forgotten in USA, where efforts are now directed at absorbing German, Italian and Spanish.) There's a smattering of words from India and other parts of the Empire as well. Hardly any from Italian or Spanish, which accounts for a lot of differences between American and English. The spelling differences you mention are I think a result of attempts to simplify the language by your founding fathers. Similarly, today, sentence structure is changing, with a wholesale ditching of previously useful tenses and, for instance, an insistence on putting adverbs before their verbs. Are those German influences? And why do so many insist on a single word never being both a noun and a verb (use, usage)? What do you do with compact, which can be noun, verb or adjective? I could go on, but I'd better not :-) -- Regards Peter
Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Regular v Ordinary
Le 2014-04-30 12:47, Peter Humphrey a écrit : On Wednesday 30 Apr 2014 10:21:11 godzil wrote: I suspect that your habits for regular or ordinary came from French, where the first translation of regular is régulier, habituel which mean that it is something is a habits. And ordinary will be translate to ordinaire that have the means of common, standard. I know that some difference from UK and US English come from the nearby European country (mostly France) (i.e: colour vs color, behaviour vs behavior, etc.) Yes, true, except that habits is not the right word: usage would be better, which in this context in English means custom. Thanks Countries being adjacent is not the explanation. I haven't seen an authority on this, but I believe that a good half of English words come from French (as a result of the most recent invasion of these islands in 1066), most of the rest coming from Latin and Greek. (That's now largely forgotten in USA, where efforts are now directed at absorbing German, Italian and Spanish.) There's a smattering of words from India and other parts of the Empire as well. Hardly any from Italian or Spanish, which accounts for a lot of differences between American and English. Yes that true, lots of English words came from old French, and funnily some word that were lost goes back into French :) But I don't agree, on the origin of Old English it is more a germano-celtic language than a latino-greek one. French clearly come from Latin and Old Greek, like Spanish or Italian. On the contrary, the German language have nearly no roots in Latin and Greek. The spelling differences you mention are I think a result of attempts to simplify the language by your founding fathers. Wikipedia have a nice article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences (I tried to read it, but now my head is hurting!) Similarly, today, sentence structure is changing, with a wholesale ditching of previously useful tenses and, for instance, an insistence on putting adverbs before their verbs. Are those German influences? And why do so many insist on a single word never being both a noun and a verb (use, usage)? What do you do with compact, which can be noun, verb or adjective? I could go on, but I'd better not :-)
