Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta

On 18 dec, 13:03, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg....RemoveThis@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
> In article <091068fe-45e0-4ccf-a3de-
> 7041e3ab9....RemoveThis@d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, eddyster....RemoveThis@hotmail.com
> says...
>
> > > Isn't this this an English way of saying "without hope"? Like in "This time
> > > I'm done..."
>
> > I think the correct English in that case is "to be done for"
>
> > Plenty of English natives around to correct either of us I suppose
>
> Most Americans, though, use diction and idiom like Boss Nass, and of
> Yoda have the syntax.

This is not limited to just USA-nians. Languages are not static, they
evolve, and the meaning of something can over the years completely
reverse. Spelling and grammar always play catch-up to IRL. If enough
people use a particular "faulty" term, it'll become the "correct" term
over time. I don't know what the situation is in the English speaking
world but for Dutch, French and German there's a sort of "language
academy" which determines the standard, and which introduces spelling
and grammar reforms. Dutch has gone through 2 minor spelling reforms
recently and German just had a major one.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

On 18 dec, 14:14, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > This is not limited to just USA-nians. Languages are not static, they
> > evolve, and the meaning of something can over the years completely
> > reverse.
>
> Yup. It always cracks me up when some "language expert" fustigates
> Torqemada-like the "new Italian language bastardization" (integration of
> English nouns, transmigration of internet-born terminologies into daily
> language...) - and then you catch the very same dude masturbating himself
> into an orgasm over "A new study of the French occupation's infuences on the
> dialects of Northwestern Italy during the XVIII Century".
>
> To Francophiles: the slang word for "Ham" in NW Italy - the one that my
> Grandma used - is "Jambo'". This is "a cultural heritage we are losing, sob,
> buah!" But just try to use "hard disk" in a normal conversation, and you
> will be jumped by the loony "purist" who screams how "there is an Italian
> word for that, DAMN'IT!!!"

What I've noticed is that this aversion for new bastard words derived
from English is pretty much a southern European phenomenon. The French
language academy even actively creates new French words and promotes
them over the original English term, while more northern countries
don't seem to give a damn if an Anglicism enters their language. Might
have something to do with the fact that those English words, being
Germanic in nature, are usually a lot closer to the northern native
language anyway, so they're not so "foreign" to them.

For instance there's no reason for Dutch speakers to create a new
Dutch word for "printer" when you realize that "printer" for the past
400 years or so has been a Dutch word which denotes a guy who's in the
printing business. Oh, sure, they've created a new word for it, but I
don't know anyone who actually uses it. The same goes for a lot of
other English words which get incorporated into daily speech. A lot of
times they barely differ from the original native term they're
replacing.

In France it's different - those newly created French words are
largely accepted and used by the population but it's not that this
academic insistence and promotion of native words is always successful
- every Frenchman says "G" when they refer to their mobile phone -
which is short for "GSM" or "Global System for Mobile communication".

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

These language swaps can be mutual. On an England to France cross
channel ferry, where public announcements are in two languages, I have
heard "the buffet is now open" translated as "le snack-bar est
ouvert".

Vive la difference

Ares
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

On 18 dec, 15:37, Ares <hopliteencoun... DeleteThis @f2s.com> wrote:
> These language swaps can be mutual. On an England to France cross
> channel ferry, where public announcements are in two languages, I have
> heard "the buffet is now open" translated as "le snack-bar est
> ouvert".
>
> Vive la difference

LOL - What Anglophones maybe aren't realizing is that most of this
"mutual exchanges" are pretty much one-directional : from the
culturally dominant language to the other. A lot of French words
entered the English language in the decades after 1066 but I can't
think of a single recent one. In the game of world domination
Hollywood is worth a couple of divisions.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

In article <091068fe-45e0-4ccf-a3de-
7041e3ab989c DeleteThis @d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, eddysterckx DeleteThis @hotmail.com
says...

> > Isn't this this an English way of saying "without hope"? Like in "This time
> > I'm done..."
>
> I think the correct English in that case is "to be done for"
>
> Plenty of English natives around to correct either of us I suppose

Most Americans, though, use diction and idiom like Boss Nass, and of
Yoda have the syntax.

--
Giftzwerg
***
"More than 10,000 jet into Bali for global warming conference."
- Associated Press
"You just can't make this stuff up."
- Glenn Reynolds
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

On 18 dec, 17:08, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reck... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
> > In France it's different - those newly created French words are
> > largely accepted and used by the population but it's not that this
> > academic insistence and promotion of native words is always successful
>
> Yup, I remember one of my last visits to Paris, and all my confusion about
> this "numérisazion" of things (La numérisation du patrimoine artistique de
> Paris... La Biblioteque National a été numerisé...) After some comparative
> reading and hard deductive work, I realized that it was the French world for
> "digitalization".

It's quite insane when you realize "digit" is from the latin
"digitus", which survives in modern French as "doigt". All of which
means that a Romance language like French should actually embrace the
word "digitalization" instead of using an existing word/concept
(numérisation = the action of counting) and having it perform double
duty.

> I won't even start about "le disc dur"...

Boot sector error ?

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

> This time (again) they're swearing the game will be released when
> totally done.

Isn't this this an English way of saying "without hope"? Like in "This time
I'm done..."
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

In article <GWM9j.18208$8j3.16962@tornado.fastwebnet.it>,
reckall.DeleteThis@hotmail.com says...

> > This time (again) they're swearing the game will be released when
> > totally done.
>
> Isn't this this an English way of saying "without hope"? Like in "This time
> I'm done..."

"Done in" or "done for" are probably closer matches, but yeah, right on.
It's like when us gringos say, "I fixed it. But good," and everyone
understands the thing in question is now a smoking ruin.

--
Giftzwerg
***
"More than 10,000 jet into Bali for global warming conference."
- Associated Press
"You just can't make this stuff up."
- Glenn Reynolds
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

> This is not limited to just USA-nians. Languages are not static, they
> evolve, and the meaning of something can over the years completely
> reverse.

Yup. It always cracks me up when some "language expert" fustigates
Torqemada-like the "new Italian language bastardization" (integration of
English nouns, transmigration of internet-born terminologies into daily
language...) - and then you catch the very same dude masturbating himself
into an orgasm over "A new study of the French occupation's infuences on the
dialects of Northwestern Italy during the XVIII Century".

To Francophiles: the slang word for "Ham" in NW Italy - the one that my
Grandma used - is "Jambo'". This is "a cultural heritage we are losing, sob,
buah!" But just try to use "hard disk" in a normal conversation, and you
will be jumped by the loony "purist" who screams how "there is an Italian
word for that, DAMN'IT!!!"
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

<eddysterckx.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2b933f50-9769-4fd8-a07e-069aea2ebe1c@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On 18 dec, 13:03, Giftzwerg <giftzwerg....DeleteThis@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
>> In article <091068fe-45e0-4ccf-a3de-
>> 7041e3ab9....DeleteThis@d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, eddyster....DeleteThis@hotmail.com
>> says...
>>
>> > > Isn't this this an English way of saying "without hope"? Like in
>> > > "This time
>> > > I'm done..."
>>
>> > I think the correct English in that case is "to be done for"
>>
>> > Plenty of English natives around to correct either of us I suppose
>>
>> Most Americans, though, use diction and idiom like Boss Nass, and of
>> Yoda have the syntax.
>
> This is not limited to just USA-nians. Languages are not static, they
> evolve, and the meaning of something can over the years completely
> reverse. Spelling and grammar always play catch-up to IRL. If enough
> people use a particular "faulty" term, it'll become the "correct" term
> over time. I don't know what the situation is in the English speaking
> world but for Dutch, French and German there's a sort of "language
> academy" which determines the standard, and which introduces spelling
> and grammar reforms. Dutch has gone through 2 minor spelling reforms
> recently and German just had a major one.
>
> Greetz,
>
> Eddy Sterckx

The first British-English vs American-English example that springs to mind
is the American 'I could care less' vs. the British 'I couldn't care less'.
I opt for the latter and always feel like replying to Amricans 'I could care
less, too. And?'
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

> In France it's different - those newly created French words are
> largely accepted and used by the population but it's not that this
> academic insistence and promotion of native words is always successful

Yup, I remember one of my last visits to Paris, and all my confusion about
this "numérisazion" of things (La numérisation du patrimoine artistique de
Paris... La Biblioteque National a été numerisé...) After some comparative
reading and hard deductive work, I realized that it was the French world for
"digitalization".

I won't even start about "le disc dur"...
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

On 19 dec, 11:24, "Andrew McGee"
>
> Another little example: in Engfland if something 'goes like a bomb' it is a
> great success;
>
> In America it something 'bombs' it is a total failure.

Historically speaking the concept of a standard language only came
into play as a side effect of the 2 historical events and simple
market forces.

- The invention of the printing press, which made books a lot cheaper,
which in turn resulted in a demand for own-language books from a
middle-class which wasn't versed in the standard book language of the
time (Latin).

- The bible was translated from Latin into the local language - as
this was the Word from God these translations were closely scrutinized
by the Church and so there was exactly one "approved" version. The
language rules and spelling used in this translation became the
official standard in more than one European country.

As to the market forces : for a printer it didn't make economical
sense to print different versions for different regions within the
same language group, so if he had to pick one language version over
another he usually went for the largest possible target audience -
both in numbers and wealth - which for most countries was the capital
region.

So for the past 400 years the printing press has managed, more or
less, to unify all the different local variants of languages, to make
them grow closer to each other. This is in sharp contrast to all that
which happened before where linguistically variants of the same
language tend to grow apart over time and become a separate languages.

With the advent of the 'Net I thought that this process surely was
going to increase as the earthly boundaries and natural gaps between
the various English speaking nations would dissolve in Cyberspace. To
my surprise this hasn't happened (yet). British posters remain
British, Ozzies remain Ozzies and USA-nians remain USA-nians in the
way they post, both when looking at it technically (spelling, grammar)
and when looking at the style and choice of words and expressions.

It seems the human spirit always wants to differentiate himself

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta 

"Ares" <hopliteencounter RemoveThis @f2s.com> wrote in message
news:a301e6ff-7acf-4482-82c9-9fb66d1863e3@p69g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> These language swaps can be mutual. On an England to France cross
> channel ferry, where public announcements are in two languages, I have
> heard "the buffet is now open" translated as "le snack-bar est
> ouvert".
>
> Vive la difference
>
> Ares

and as President Bush famously said:

that's the thing about the French - they don't even have a word for
'entrepreneur'.
 >> Stay informed about: Distant Guns : Jutland - entering beta