h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can quite see the point of the Academie Francaise. Hitler tried to do it with the German language too when he was in power. But this is one case (see France today, e.g. in the computer world, where they have painstakingly created words for everything and still go ahead and use the English words) where the populace wins.

The problem is, they use the words wrongly and in this usage they are totally incomprehensible for an English person hearing them for the first time. The classic example is the German use of the word "Handy". They have made it into a noun, pronounce it as though it's an English word and apply it to mean "Mobile Phone"!!! (They think the English pronounce that "hendy", to confuse matters more)

The others are endless: Do you use "Old Timer" to mean a person in Britain?? If you do, please excuse me, I never did. To me, it is a veteran car. But in Germany, it is a person. (an old one)

Or they change a word like the French version of "Shampoo" - "Shampooing" pronounced Shompoi.

There are no doubt equivalent examples of the English language taking up foreign words and giving them the wrong meanings, just to confuse the foreigners from whose language they come.

I don't think this is a way of enriching a language at all. I think it is laziness and ignorance. As far as I can tell, the German word "angst" is misused in English to mean "phobia" or "neurosis", words which are already in the language. "Angst" in German simply means "fear" and the words "Phobie" and "Neurose" exist in German, too, so why take a word from another language, rape it and use it wrongly, just to impress, when all you are doing is making a fool of yourself?

If I am speaking German I use the German word for what I am saying, unless I have a specific reason for doing otherwise, or unless there is really no German word which has that meaning (as far as I know) or which the person I am talking to would not understand. The same would apply in English.

But we are talking about English here, and I would like to hear some more examples of where the English language has picked up words and changed the meaning (also so as I am warned if I ever go back, because lots of these "new" words have been introduced in the last few years)

In the States, Old Timer also refers to an old man. It's just slang, though, so doesn't merit serious consideration, since all slang eventually falls out of fashion. That particular term was common among the Baby Boomers, and now that they themselves are old timers, it is falling out of use. At present, a veteran car is either a classic or a beater, depending on its condition.

I've heard the word "angst" used in English, but never in the context that you use. It is most commonly used as a word to describe the deep, existential pain, frustration, and fear that artists so like to effect. It is therefore a concept that the English language lacks. But considering that German and English have the same roots, I would hesitate before I declare that English stole that word outright... it may have belonged to both languages, but evolved differently.

In the English language, it is now actually quite difficult to screw up someone else's word, because you have a horde of native speakers standing around waiting to correct you... at least in the States.

Is there a difference between a wigwam and a teepee?
(Like Trillian's child, I'm posting to keep this on my home space )

Where does the word "Dandruff" come from?
I only ask because it seems to be completely different in each European language...my multi-market bottle has "Anti Dandruff" (UK), "Antipelliculare" (FR), "Anti-roos" (Dutch) and at least 3 others all of which are totally different.

Any ideas on this?

Dander means dust - perhaps dandruff was dust on your ruff?

"Shuppen" in German and "Forfora" in Italian.

If it was Dander on the Ruff, woudln't it have been called Ruffdander?
That's a much better name

Thank you for putting me straight on the old timer.

The Angst word I mean though is nowadays used in English magazines and does not generally refer to artists or the like. The one you describe I would unfeelingly classify as a neurosis as well, but I am not qualified in that field, either psychiatry or art.

Hmm. Define "qualified".
I think that, like me, you are qualified in both just by being a sentient adult.

I was assuming "neurosis" had a scientific definition which the psycho-gurus have thought up so I can't understand what they're talking about. And as for "Artist" - I could never claim to be artistic or creative or depressed enough to go through what was described above. Thus "qualified" in the literal sense.

But thanx for the ego-boost !

To throw another few "gems" into this forum:

I was giving extra English lessons to a girl once. They had had a comprehension test - a story about an old couple who had been broken in on, or something similar. But the majority of the class did not know the word "couple" in the sense of being two people. So they misinterpreted the whole text. This I find interesting, because the word "couple" - in all its senses - must be one of the more common words that students should explicitly be taught. Apart from which, it is not fair on some (this girl was Polish, a French-speaking person would have understood this connotation of the word)

On the same tack, a colleague once had the same experience in a French exam. The whole text was about "poids lourds". Very few actually realised that they were talking about lorries. This is the usual expression in France, as road signs, and the use of the word in the set text prove, but somehow no one had thought to teach them this.

How much actually has to be taught, and how much is left up to the students to work out for themselves. Some people simply do not have the power of transferring meanings. For example, I was talking to one (high-up) engineer where I used to work about a translation I was doing and about English in general, and he could not (with his literal technicians mind) see why the word "boring" means what it does in English. His mind was so full of the image of "drilling", particularly as the German equivalent is "bohren" that he had no room for a figurative sense.

Other people can see, for example, no relationship between the German and English words Brot and bread. (my own father, to be specific).

In a monolingual situation, a religion teacher who was taking a class of student engineers spent half a lesson talking at cross-purposes to his pupils, until he realised that his interpretation of the word "tolerance" was very different from theirs.

So this is what we are up against when teaching other people languages. I am tempted to say "what sad lives these people all live, if they only assimilate a small proportion of what they hear, the wide meanings of any statement in any language being largely lost to them". But they could easily retaliate with sympathy for my not being able to interpret, say, a chess match in full swing with all its exciting possibilities and interpretations, or a small flower with all its biological messages.

Oh dear, I have gone on a bit again. do you know what I mean though?

Yes

Sorry, couldn't resist it.
Artistic? You have arranged / furnished / decorated a living space for your self (and family) Possibly you have made things for it or grown plants in it? People do not run screaming away when you open the door. Have you ever sewn,knitted,crocheted anything, made Christmas decorations, taken photographs that were good enough to enlarge? Being domestic arts does not disqualify them
Psychology? Do you get other people's feelings right more than 50% of the time. Can you talk children out of violence?
Are you a good hugger?

Colonel Sellers said: Angst: a word to describe the deep, existential pain, frustration, and fear that artists
so like to effect. It is therefore a concept that the English language lacks

So I really can't apply that to any crochet or interior decorating I've done. Actually he implies that the English language has so far not needed such a word. Does he mean that the English don't "effect" things, or that the English (sorry, the English-speaking races) don't experience "deep, existential pain, frustration, and fear" Discuss!!

Your questions re psychology do, however, make me feel very inferior. I don't think I've ever had to talk my children out of violence. I do hug them, but I don't know how well. My youngest has just started rejecting cuddles (he's nearly 12), and the older ones now hug me back. (16 and 18) And no, I am useless at judging other people's feelings. I just nod and withhold comment, so as not to say the wrong thing, which, as experience has shown, I will otherwise do. Am I neurotic? am I a freak?

Any way, to get back to the subject - seriously, are you sometimes surprised by your EFL students, do they come to conclusions without you having to explicitly teach them things, or do you have to "spell it all out" to them. Are there categories of students? For example, are the musical ones quicker at picking up the language?

Dear Trillian's Child
I'm going to have to get back to you on this. Part of my research is on how Chinese students learn English and we don't start teaching until 23rd . It includes music/language links and maths/language ditto. Also do Chinese people who've made a start with Japanese do better at English or is it too different (and too similar to Chinese)?
We're going to do some Suggestopedia type stuff as well. I've just spent some petty cash on fragrant oils. Mozart seemingly aids language learning. Does Chinese music work better for Chinese? etc ad inf really See you soon

English is composed of mainly German and Latin

yep, I think more german than latin though

except that people in Africa, Western Europe, Asia, Pacific Islands, and possibly South America (don't know whether they speak Spanish or Portugese, If not then include on list.) speak languages that aren't related to the Romance languages(Latin, the parent language, French, Spanish, Portugese, and Romanian). After all, English is only part latin. The rest is derived from German, which has no relation to Latin, other than the Germans were conquered by the Romans.

-Gamen1324
A Latin and (soon-to-be) Japanese student.

either 70% Latin or German, I forget

You guys are oversimplifying. The English language is the history of English speaking-people:

Origins: Germanic, from the Anglo-Saxon people. All of our most basic words, like field, friend (notice the German vowel combinations there), work, farm, etc. come from this base.

Further influences:
- French: The Norman invasion brought that language to the shores of England. Also, when France was the premier language of diplomacy and culture, lots of their words trickled in. That explains why we have a lot of culture words from them like cuisine, naive, fashion, etc.
- Norse: Successful raids by Norse war parties introduced Norse lingo to the language. It's difficult to measure their influece, however, because they share linguistic roots with the Anglo-Saxons.
- Gaelic: Only a few words from Gaelic, since the English managed to subdue Gauls rather quickly and brutally. Had the circumstances been otherwise, the Gaelic influence on the language would have been much more profound.
- Latin: In the Dark Ages, the only educated people were the church, and they spoke fluent Latin. Latin therefore became the language of learning, and it contained many principles and concepts our barbaric forebears had not yet been exposed to. As we emerged from barbarism and advanced in the sciences, latin was the only language we had available to describe advanced concepts, and so it became the language of science.
- Greek: Ditto, except Greek words in science came to be more closely associated with the softer sciences, like psychology and philosophy (both, you may notice, derive the very name of their science from AncintGreek).
- Native American: Frequent contact between Brits, Canadians, and Americans from the time the first settlers arrived until the end of the wars in the 1850's facilitated an exchange of ideas that also facilitated an exchange of language. A large proportion of North American place-names come from Indian roots.

And so on, and so forth...

Don't forget the odd word or too we picked up from the native lanuages of the empire.

If you want to see an example of old english and see the German/scandanavian roots goto http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~beowulf/main.html for an example.

Thanks Colonel Sellers. Where do people get these simplifications from? Perhaps a mix-up between the individual languages and the language families?
In my original neck of the woods (East Anglia,UK) there were also masses of Dutch and lots of Yiddish