Code 46

Thor: So I watched a DVD last night and one of the characters declared that he had great respect for the Normans. Why? Because "they created the English language from nothing except French." I thought "Yeah, it was quite an accomplishment to take French and build a real language on it." But even the Normans had to use a little bit of Latin to complete the task. It left me wondering if it were possible to construct a usable language from French alone. I doubt it, but it's an interesting philosophical question. If a two Frenchmen are speaking alone in a forest, is there any conversation?

English is a wonderful language. Our vocabulary is massive, containg words like "pentasyllabic" (a word which describes itself) and "sequipedalianism" (if you use this word then you've committed the sin it describes.) Many languages borrow words from other languages, but English doesn't just borrow words, it hunts them down in back alleys and beats them into submission. English even steals its own words, borrowing nouns to make verbs. As Calvin said "Verbing weirds language." In what other tongue could you say such a wonderful thing?

You can even make up nonsense words in English and have them make sense (as in Jabberwocky. Just what does "brillig" mean after all?)

Tyr: I bought a bottle of fairly decent tequila (Commemerativo) yesterday which is hard to do in Canada. But since it was Canada, half the language on the bottle had to be in French. So I found it pretty funny that on one side of the bottle about 2/3 of the printing was in Spanish and the other 1/3 in English. On the other side of the bottle both the English and Spanish were translated into French.

These Quebecers are so anal about their language, they rob themselves of the little cultural experiences, like trying to decipher the Spanish on a bottle of tequila. I wonder how one says "anejo" in French?

In summary: English is almost as good as God's original language: German.

Tyr and Thor