You think English is easy???

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by beutelwolf

...Moreover, the written language was dominated by the (literate) ruling elite, i.e. the Normans.

The classic example of this is with names for food-items; the Normans ate what the Saxon serfs prepared. So:
mutton [Fr. mouton]/sheep;
pork [Fr. porc]/pig;
beef [Fr. boeuf]/cow.... and we poor Brits end up with two names for everything : -)

A lot of English place-names [naturally enough] have Norse or Latin roots - in the example here '-cester' [later '-chester'] came from L. 'castra', camp. The first part of such names usually specifies a local landmark, e.g. Lancaster: Lune [the river]+ camp [castra]. One of the oddest contractions of this type is Cirencester, which I have heard rendered 'Sissiter' or even 'Sister'. Go figure.... as was said above, spelling will always be playing catch-up with pronunciation.

I happen to think [perhaps biasedly] that English is more fun becase of all the twists and turns it has undergone; Romance langaugea are, by comparison, models of sanity. I've some experience teaching English as a foreign language and I do appreciate how frustrating it can be - espcially when, after being told the "i before e, except after c" rule you then explain that there are in fact many more contradictions of this rule than there are observances !
Ironically, English is quite easy to learn to speak badly; it's learning to speak it well that causes the pain. In terms of communication, bad English does the job adequately- and it also allows the more parochial of us Brits to feel [wholly unjustifiably] superior : -)

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by mmephistoo

what does it mean when you say "this environment drives life to its limits"?
thanks in advance

It's a flowery way of saying 'this environment is extreme'.
A pretty daft contention; in one or more senses all environments drive life to the limits, else there wouldn't be any selection-pressure on populations and evolution couldn't occur.
What they really mean is 'this environment [say, the Sahara] is extreme in human terms'. Which is why not many peeps live there, duh, but loads of scorpions do. A deep-sea hatchet-fish would find life in the Northern Temperate Zone just as uncomfortable ['extreme'] as a human would find it 10km below the surface of the Pacific : -)

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by Cleburne

I never understood why us Americans drive on the parkway and park on the driveway !?!

Shouldn't that be 'WE Americans'? : -))

[jeffcj]

> ...I have always believed that the lack of accents and blended vowels in english
AMERICAN English, maybe. Brit English still has many example of dipthongs, mainly in loan-words [although there's always things like 'aerofoil' and the somewhat obsolescent 'aeroplane']; and had in the past many more [usually of Anglo-Saxon origin - 'hwaet'! being familiar to thiose acquanted with 'Beowulf] which have gradually been eliminated as the spelling caught up.


> "easier" to write because they were lazy.
I'm not sure that's true. More likely it was partly the 'revolutionary' hangover, wanting to distance the new[-ish] nation from the oppressor motherland [as also in the decimal coinage and sundry other instances].
Another part might have been good old-fashioned intellectual patronage; the plebs will find it easier to understand our commands if we simplify the language : -) It's also true that the mania for spelling-reform [which rather ignores historical precedent] has its proponents in each new generation, each equally doomed to failure.

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by ErnestoGuevara

While I agree that alumna is the feminine form of the noun, alumnus is normally used generically to describe a former student of either sex.

Either way, alumn- is very much more an American English usage, along with similar self-aggrandizements like 'sophomore' and 'summa cum laude'. Most Brits would find it all rather pompous, and more usually say 'I was up at/came down from Cambridge - if they're over 50 - or simply 'I got/took my degree/BA/whatever....].

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by Mufflover

Feminazis object violently to this usage. I have no idea why.

It's odd that they don't seem too exercized about mainland Europe's almost universal use of gendered nouns : -)
Mind you, any bunch stupid enough to want to drive a coach-and-four through etymology and change 'talisman' to 'talisperson' oughtn't to be taken too seriously....

[jeffcj]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

"Menzies" is pronounced "Mingis" in Scotland - "Ming" is a diminutive which I've only ever heard used in relation to the Liberal ex-leader

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh.
And - 'Ming', as in 'Ming the Merciless'.

[MrLinc]

Found this somewhere, nice one

[dbailey]

English can me made simple through thorough thought, though a rough grasp can be bought with enough money though fraught with risk