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Post by Count Zero on Dec 23, 2007 21:56:43 GMT -4
The strangest word in the English language (in my opinion) is "colonel". It makes no sense at all... who do we blame for it? The most confusing thing for me is that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing.
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Post by VALIS on Dec 23, 2007 23:17:15 GMT -4
The strangest word in the English language (in my opinion) is "colonel". It makes no sense at all... who do we blame for it? I checked on wiki and apparently Jason is right, you guys can blame "colonel" on us francophone invaders. On the other hand it seems we borrowed it from the Italian "colonello". In French, "colonnel" actually makes sense as it means "column leader" and for us "column" is "colonne".
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Post by Data Cable on Dec 24, 2007 1:01:52 GMT -4
But do the Italians pronounce it as it's spelled? And if so, how did the English pronunciation come to be "KER-nel"?
And on the subject of military rank pronunciation, why do the Brits (and other Commonwealthers?) pronounce "lieutenant" as "leftenant"?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 24, 2007 1:54:02 GMT -4
I checked on wiki and apparently Jason is right, you guys can blame "colonel" on us francophone invaders. Actually I had sources other than Wikipedia, including my college classes in Anglo-Saxon literature, my fluency in Dutch, and my English Lit. degree. But whatever works for you.
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Post by gillianren on Dec 24, 2007 2:32:05 GMT -4
But do the Italians pronounce it as it's spelled? And if so, how did the English pronunciation come to be "KER-nel"? One of my books has a lengthy discussion on this subject. Unfortunately, I cannot now remember which one, and therefore I cannot advise you as to where to go and read up about it. However, it goes to show that one cannot blame the French for all of English's vagaries. We must blame the English themselves, I think, for borrowing from every language they encountered but--and here's the fun part--mostly leaving the original spelling alone. This means that words borrowed from German mostly have German spellings, words borrowed from French mostly have French spellings, and so forth. Since these languages don't have the same phonetic system, it means that English doesn't have a real phonetic system at all. Oh, and while Kindergarten is capitalized in German, kindergarten is not capitalized in English. Since it's a word we don't bother italicizing to show that it's foreign anymore, we don't follow that particular German grammatical tradition anymore, either.
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Post by alex04 on Dec 24, 2007 2:46:30 GMT -4
The "undebunkable" moon hoax video mentioned earlier at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmQ8UPekwTUshows prolonged movement after the astronaut walks by. I can count at least 25 swings of the flag corner. I believe that type of reaction would be impossible in an atmosphere. MichaelStMark obviously disagrees. Go to 9:00 in the video and count for yourself. Michael has changed his position so many times (from 20 to 10 seconds of movement after the astronaut passes, breeze assisted to no breeze, indoors to outdoors, etc.) that he now says the "apparent" prolonged flag movement is caused by "picture instability". He says I just need to open my eyes! If any of you feel up to it, would you take a look for yourself and add your opinion? If you're lucky, maybe Michael won't censor your comment and allow it to post! Does anyone know where i can find the exact 'complete' source footage of the video in question here? (at 9minutes, and 3:07)?
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 24, 2007 9:10:57 GMT -4
But do the Italians pronounce it as it's spelled? And if so, how did the English pronunciation come to be "KER-nel"? And on the subject of military rank pronunciation, why do the Brits (and other Commonwealthers?) pronounce "lieutenant" as "leftenant"? Because the chap's supposed to be leading men in battle, not renting a public convenience ;D
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Post by VALIS on Dec 24, 2007 9:55:51 GMT -4
Actually I had sources other than Wikipedia, including my college classes in Anglo-Saxon literature, my fluency in Dutch, and my English Lit. degree. But whatever works for you. Sorry, I did not mean to say your source was wikipedia. I just meant to say that your general statement was correctly predicting the result for the specific example LO gave. I don't have the benefit of classes in English literature, I don't even have an English dictionary. My classes were in French and my dictionary is in French. So while did I know that a lot of the English vocabulary derives from French, the easiest way to validate for the specific "colonel" example was the online wiktionary. Which was a good idea, since I think it explains the pronunciation. The middle French word that became "colonel" in both French and English was spelled "coronel"
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Post by Ginnie on Dec 24, 2007 11:07:47 GMT -4
What exactly. Americans seems to have so much out for the French, but they seem to have short memories.
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Post by Ginnie on Dec 24, 2007 11:17:05 GMT -4
The strangest word in the English language (in my opinion) is "colonel". It makes no sense at all... who do we blame for it? Blame the French! It entered our language via the French in the form coronel. It mutated to colonel later on. So the original spelling approximates the sound of the word better. The French can't be blamed for the mutation though. If you want to go back further, it comes from the Latin columna 'pillar' (also source of English column). More: a colonel was so called because he commanded a company at the head of a regiment, known in Italian as the compagna colonnella - literally the 'little column company".
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Post by Ginnie on Dec 24, 2007 11:19:06 GMT -4
The strangest word in the English language (in my opinion) is "colonel". It makes no sense at all... who do we blame for it? The most confusing thing for me is that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing. I thought infammable meant it is resistant to fire?
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Post by VALIS on Dec 24, 2007 11:22:52 GMT -4
Well there's also habitable and inhabitable
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Post by Ginnie on Dec 24, 2007 11:41:47 GMT -4
But do the Italians pronounce it as it's spelled? And if so, how did the English pronunciation come to be "KER-nel"? One of my books has a lengthy discussion on this subject. Unfortunately, I cannot now remember which one, and therefore I cannot advise you as to where to go and read up about it. However, it goes to show that one cannot blame the French for all of English's vagaries. We must blame the English themselves, I think, for borrowing from every language they encountered but--and here's the fun part--mostly leaving the original spelling alone. This means that words borrowed from German mostly have German spellings, words borrowed from French mostly have French spellings, and so forth. Since these languages don't have the same phonetic system, it means that English doesn't have a real phonetic system at all. Blame the French again. Those nasty Normans (who had become French) invaded England and ran it for a few hundred years. Also, since French was more 'respectable' than your regular Middle English, it took a long time to get rid of its use in British parliament and in legal usage. I doubt it if regular english folk at the time ever learned french at all. The English borrowed from the French and the Normans though, as you can see in these words: Norman: French: convey convoy gaol jail warden guardian warrant guarantee wile guile You can argue over which is better... ask or question or interrogate? (Ger - Fr - Latin) fast, firm or secure? fire, flame or conflagration? holy, sacred or consecrated? house or mansion? king, royal or regal? rest, remainder or residue? (funny, residue is actually a Latin borrowing from the French!) rise, mount or ascend? wish or desire? The Germanic word king applies only to the male of course, but royal and regal applies to male or female. Middle English gives us choices that were lacking in the language before and our literature and poetry certainly benefit from it don't you think?
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Post by frenat on Dec 24, 2007 12:34:00 GMT -4
What I find interesting is many of the English food words come from French. You don't often talk about eating cow but you do eat beef, likewise with pig and pork, lamb and mutton, chicken and poultry.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Dec 24, 2007 12:40:50 GMT -4
Right. The Norman word is the form used for the food while the Anglo-Saxon form is still around for the animal. The Norman royalty ate the beef while the saxon peasants kept the cows for them.
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