Grammar Police Gazette

[old man emu]

And you can blame that damned Yankee, Noah Webster, for the abomination of American spelling.

[facthunter]

Helps destroy the Meaning of the Word. Maybe that explaines some things. 

[nomadpete]

38 minutes ago, facthunter said:

A lot of people speak it.  It has Latin and Greek roots. . .  Nev

Strong roots.... doesn'tmake it good.... like the weeds in my garden.

[nomadpete]

It's all greek to me.

Edited Saturday at 11:44 PM by nomadpete

[onetrack]

Believe it or not, I've actually found "align" written as "aline" in a number of WW2 U.S. Military Technical Manuals ("TM's"). I have never seen it spelt like that anywhere before, but apparently, according to authoritative sources, it's a common alternative spelling, and it has been that way for a couple of centuries.

 

I suspected it was spelt that way in the WW2 TM's, so it was easier for black American soldiers/mechanics to read.

But it appears there was a contemporaneous American English spelling reform movement, that was quite strong between about 1890 and 1950. This group set about eliminating all the curious (mostly French-origin) English word spellings, to simplified spellings that were more directly related to phonetic pronunciations.

However, the movement appears to have fizzled out after about 1950.

 

It seems we can blame the French once again - "alignment" is pretty much directly lifted from the French word "aligner" - which means to align.

 

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/131067/alignment-or-alinement#:~:text=The words aline%2Falign and,the words (the 1847 American

[facthunter]

French is VERY Latin. Holy Books were written in Latin. So is Spanish and Italian and consequently Mexican and South American countries. . Latin is a Pretty adequate language in it's own right.   Nev

[old man emu]

Even in Latin after the fall of the Western Roman Empire had a lot of variants. One could almost call Medieval Latin a variety of pidgin Latin. Medieval Latin had an enlarged vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. It was heavily influenced by the language of the Vulgate, which contained many peculiarities alien to Classical Latin. Vulgate, or Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward by everyday people.

 

Those areas of the Western Roman Empire have languages strongly based on Latin and Greek. The languages of the rest of Europe that the Roman did not conquer have languages based on the expansion of the parent Indo-European languages and the effects of isolation on the development of dialects which eventually became common languages. Compare the Slavic languages with the Germanic or Celtic and you see how isolation produced the different languages.

 

During the Medieval Period the increase in knowledge from native sources or through trade and interaction with the Arabic world introduced many new words which the intelligentsia Latinised to include in correspondence which was mostly carried out using Latin forms.

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

aline

A-line is a form of a-dress.

[spacesailor]

Isn't it ridiculous.  Most of the world speak's English,  followed by French .

Now , lots of mini countries are pushing the " native " language. 

Welsh is only. Understood,  by the Welsh. 

Republic of Ireland,  is going ' native ' plus English & with French Euro money .

New Zealand has a ' Native ' court system . Two legal entities. 

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

They were going for ESPERANTO as a Universal language. You going to be OK with Mandarin spacey?. Yes the Language Barrier worsens. Hundreds of tribes in Australia could not understand each other. Zelensky had to argue in his 3rd Language when AMBUSHED  by Trump and Vance. Whatever language, there will be people who can't be trusted OR be truthful.  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

4 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Welsh is only. Understood,  by the Welsh. 

Only really the northern Welsh in numbers; In Wales, Welsh is a mandatory subject, but most southern Welsh people promptly forget it.  Certainly that has been my expeience.

[red750]

The Welsh have long been considered to have the longest place name, 58 characters -

Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

At the 2011 Census the population was 3,107, of whom 71% could speak Welsh.

 

However, New Zealand has a place with a name 85 characters long -

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapi­kimaunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu

It means 

"the hilltop where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, played his flute to his loved one."

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I am sure there are many that remember enough Welsh to claim knowing it, but from my visits to the South of Wales, hardly anyone spoke it at work or socially.. I can't recall overhearing anyone speaking it when I travelled there on work or play. In fact, most people I asked said they learned it and haven't spoken it since school and can't remember most of it. In the North, though, especially Wrexham and the like, people spoke it freely in the pubs, shopping centres, and occasionally in the office. I am sure there are people in the south that know it and speak it fluently and often, but where I worked, which covered Tintern in the east to Swansea; and when I expored the area as a tourist to Haverford West, I cannot recall one person openly speaking it.

[spacesailor]

Bridgend , South Wales .

Use it to impress the tourist  .

Dublin  Ireland has signs in their foreign language. 

New Zealand has the longest name in the world.

ENGLAND laughs at them all . LoL

spacesailor

[facthunter]

The Pope's  Easter Message was in Latin.   Nev

[onetrack]

I find it amusing that the Roman Catholic Church still insists on using a dead language for its religious communications - claiming its use "provides a stable, unchanging foundation for its liturgy and theological traditions" - while at the same time, it bases all its beliefs and traditions on a Bible that has undergone multiple translations from its original writings in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

[spacesailor]

A lot of the Latin,  has been dropped from Englands RC churches. Possibly to stop the flock wandering over to the ( Henry's ) English speaking religion  .

spacesailor