(It must be Friday somewhere.) I'm fascinated by the characterization of English as 'pidgin'. I don't see that word in any of the articles cited, but it's an intriguing idea. I think where the term falls short is not the mish-mash mongrel origin of English but the ideas of 'compromise' and 'simplification'. It seems that English has taken every opportunity to increase in complexity, not decrease, at least in regard to vocabulary. Still, despite having university degrees in English and in Linguistics, I feel better educated for this exercise.
. . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Schwab Sent: Monday, March 13, 2017 4:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: (External):Re: curious: why S/360 & decendants are "big endian". English is a pidgin language, combined from the three Celtic languages on the British Isles and 4 norther European languages from northern Europe. http://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/how-english-evolved-into-a-modern-language/1575959.html https://www.englishclub.com/history-of-english/ http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/ On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 5:08 PM, Mike Myers <[email protected]> wrote: > All: > > Many years ago, I aided Karl Finkemeyer, an IBMer on assignment in NY > at the time from Germany, and a great friend of mine to immigrate to > the US. He eventually became a citizen, and a director at Fidelity > Investments. During the immigration process, his daughter, who by that > time, spoke fluent English and German, showed me a paper which made > fun of pronunciation of words in English. Unfortunately, I did not > obtain a copy, but this discussion made me go and look on-line, hoping to > find it. > > Although this is not Friday, for those of you that like language > (especially English), Google "English pronunciation poem" or "English > is a crazy language". Lots of good chuckles for language fans. My favorites > were: > > https://archive.org/stream/EnglishCrazyLanguageEssay/English%20Crazy%2 > 0Language%20Essay_djvu.txt > http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/12/23/english-pronunciation/ > the one above as a poem: http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html > > Mike Myers > Mentor Services Corporation > Goldsboro, NC 27530 > (919) 341-5210 - office > > > On 03/13/2017 05:28 PM, Jesse 1 Robinson wrote: >> >> "English is a _stupid_ language." Every language is stupid in its own >> way, some more so than others. If English were rational and simple, >> everybody would be using it. ;-) >> >> . >> . >> J.O.Skip Robinson >> Southern California Edison Company >> Electric Dragon Team Paddler >> SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager >> 323-715-0595 Mobile >> 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW >> [email protected] >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] >> On Behalf Of John McKown >> Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2017 1:56 PM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: (External):Re: curious: why S/360 & decendants are "big endian". >> >> On Thu, Mar 9, 2017 at 3:50 PM, Paul Gilmartin < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 15:18:03 -0600, Joel C. Ewing wrote: >>> >>> It's cultural. Consider how Europeans write dates. >>> https://xkcd.com/1179/ >>> >>> And significance is subjective. About 10 years ago, I asked an >>> astronomer, "When is the equinox on Saturn?" >>> "Nine fourteen." (orally) >>> >>> September 14th seemed too soon until I pondered and realized she >>> meant, "September, 2014." >>> >>> In Boulder, CO, in the '60s (some century), all local phone numbers >>> were (303)442-xxx or (303)443-xxxx. People routinely exchanged >>> phone numbers (orally) by only the last 5 digits. The first 5 were, >>> if not insignificant, inconsequential. >>> >>> Computer science professor W.M. Waite used to say, "Top of memory," >>> pointing to the floor, and "Bottom of memory", pointing to the >>> ceiling. >>> >> Same in other books I've seen. Why? Probably because we write from >> top to bottom. We write the lowest first, at the top, and the highest >> last, at the bottom. And then we confuse everybody by calling them >> "ascending" memory addresses while writing them in a descending >> pattern. English is a _stupid_ language. >> >> >> >>> -- gil >>> >>> >> -- >> "Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is >> ancient. It's called 'rain'." -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion >> >> Maranatha! <>< >> John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
