Path: ...!news.nobody.at!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!reader5.news.weretis.net!news.solani.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: suzeeq Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv Subject: Re: [OT] Is English just badly pronounced French? Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 06:35:33 -0700 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 13:35:35 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: solani.org; logging-data="2188696"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@news.solani.org" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.12.1 Cancel-Lock: sha1:HNNrlKx9ah5UkOca5inN/bad/+U= In-Reply-To: X-User-ID: eJwNyMkBwCAIBMCWCMcC5ciq/Zdg5jlh+MB0BDxuXDRBt3+cnOJIWWqus6hB2We21ZIWNlVHHyZLEYI= Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 2892 Lines: 39 On 3/30/2024 10:03 PM, Your Name wrote: > On 2024-03-31 03:48:30 +0000, suzeeq said: >> On 3/30/2024 7:28 PM, Rhino wrote: >>> >>> I apologize in advance to Americans who are inevitably aggrieved by all >>> things French just on principle but this video actually makes a pretty >>> good case for saying that English is badly-pronounced French to a large >>> extent. >>> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUL29y0vJ8Q [18 minutes] >>> >>> When he explains all the English words that are borrowed from French >>> with only slight spelling and pronunciation changes, you may well be >>> persuaded by his argument. >> >> I wondered why the Brits call cookies 'biscuits'. Then I realized it >> comes from the French word for cookies 'bicotte'. They also call >> eggplants 'aubergines' and zucchini 'corgettes'. There's probably >> dozens of other words I can't recall now. > > The English language originates from a melding of many sources with > words being 'borrowed' from other languages, including French, German, > Gaelic, Celtic, etc.   Some words have altered over time, but some words > (e.g. rendezvous) have stayed the same as the original. > > "American English" is a sub-version that has its own unique spellings > and meanings for words. Partly because (despite hating the British rule) > they have stubbornly stuck to out-dated versions of words, as well as > out-dated measurement systems, that the original Pilgrims brought with > them rather than staying contemporary with *real* English. While GB officially went metric, many people still use the Imperial measurements, at least for linear measures, not so much for weight. > > To a much lesser extenet, there are also some different meanings (not > spellings that I can think of) for words in "Australian English" and a > few other regional variations. > >