On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 11:20:56AM +0100, fwilde@chethams.org.uk wrote:
This isn't about respect, merely usage. The French call London Londres, our pronunciation of Rheims makes them fall about laughing, and so on.
As does any non-Briton attempting to pronounce "Loughborough"...
On Monday 19 May 2003 10:02 am, Sven Burmeister wrote:
I showed this to my English mates on the corridor, their reaction: Yeah, typical stubborn anti-european, if it has anything to do with the EU they don't like it and don't accept it, you shouldn't give a sh* about them. Well, I did not say it and it might be put a little bit too simple but I mean, they are English, so they should know!? Damn it, your own people, TRAITORS!!! :D "I'm Alan Partridge,..." Muhahahaha.
Far from it, I'm an enthusiastic pro-European. I merely observe that UK usage is only a small fragment of world English, and that unlike France and Germany there is no officially appointed body attempting to oversee the written or spoken forms of the language. Germany, for example, recently promulgated a variety of orthographic and typographical reforms which we can expect to see reflected in school teaching, official publications, and more. The Academie Francaise recently acted against the cedilla.
I also vaguely recall some initiative a few years ago in the French government/parliament attempting to remove anglicised words from the language, "le weekend" being the most memorable example. The French version of "mouse" (the computer type, rather than the cheese-eating type) is also rather amusingly long-winded.
English has no comparable bodies. In the interests of fairness, perhaps you'd care to run this past your mates and see whether they can fault it. You will find the development of the plural in English to be as I have said - if in ten years the expression 'Blimey guv'nor, this pint of Carling rushed me ten Euro' has gained ascendency over 'ten Euros,' I will happily furnish you with a pint of same.
Let's all tune in to Eastenders in 10 years to find out... :-) You say that you're "enthusiastic pro-European", and you're willing to buy them a "pint of Carling"???
I now fade from the debate to the strains of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Vivat Europa.
And did those feet in ancient time......... -- David Smith Work Email: Dave.Smith@st.com STMicroelectronics Home Email: David.Smith@ds-electronics.co.uk Bristol, England GPG Key: 0xF13192F2