Oops I started this to get the URL to post elsewhere but the following took longer to research and write than I intended
The recent discussion on the main forum of odd Australian words got me thinking
Partly about their government whose judiciary I believe is under the control of the god Aorta
(as in "Aorta make a law about it")
and a Price Control Commision run by Emma Chisit
But seriously folks it has been a remarkable fact that the English Language has spread over the globe tremendously virtually within my own lifetime
Largely due I would suggest to the phenomenal growth of five particular industries
namely
aviation
travel
computing especially of course the Internet
films and
music
Indeed I tend to feel sorry for non native English speaking people trying to learn it due to the vagaries and inconsistency of spelling and pronunciation the former partly due to the reluctance of Americans to stop modifying pure English
(if you can have Magnesium and Cadmium why not Alumimium??)
and if "your" and "tour" have a "u" in it why not colo(u)r and hono(u)r?
although to be fair if it is "enter" why "center"??
Pronunciation is a result of the rich heritage and provenance of the English vocabulary
Although I do not know why I was taught to say "shed"-ule in s
kool
(as a sideline there was a report of an early (1948) tourist in London who was seen perplexedly studying a poster outside the Theater Royal in Drury Lane which said
"Oklahoma pronounced success" his body was fished out of the Thames soon afterwards.)
I once read that the average well read English speaking person's vocabulatry extends to some 600,000 words compared to the equivalent for a Frenchman or German of around a quarter of a million.
But why??
Well English (which is of course still developing) basically owes much to successive waves of furriners who invaded the island many moons ago and each contributed their own words to the melee,
This has the happy result that just aboot every object or idea has more than one word to describe it in English derived from either Latin Greek French Saxon or a Germanic language or something from the Orient or the Middle East.
Some random examples from a thesaurus are:-
table bench counter
large big gigantic huge colossal
Happy merry joyous cheerful
sad morose dejected dismal
I therefore also feel sorry for anybody trying to do a crossword in any other language
Amongst my prized posessions are the VHS tapes of a 1980's joint U.S. PBS/BBC television series called "The Story Of English"
and the companion book
If you ever get the chance to see either I strongly recommend it
There are many examples of how contentious words were derived modified and used over the centuries
John Fowles
1.When the words turn the minutes to hours
2.Freedom’s just another word
3.The words of love you sent me
4.Last night she gave the final word, she said her last goodbye
5.From the harsh words we have spoken
6.Or the words of a song ever slipped her mind Mama said
7.And by his words your fortune’s read
8.Words are for explaining the mistakes we might have made
9.How many words How many songs still unwritten
10.and wander in my words and dream about the pictures that I play of changes
all lyrics by GL except 2.(by Kris Kristofferson / Fred Foster) and 10.( by Phil Ochs)
[ January 15, 2006, 17:32: Message edited by: johnfowles ]
