GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Porter on March 03, 2009, 03:22:18 PM
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First of all, what's a better word than "foreign" to describe any language other than English, the way that foreign describes any country other than this one? Anything other than non-English
OK, is there any difference in the English pronunciation of de jure and de jour. Besides context, is there a way to tell which one is being said?
Until today, I never realized that those two were different phrases.
And why oh why do people use non-English phrases like these? It's not as though we don't have enough words already in English to keep us busy. :grumble: Is it just to obfuscate the meaning from us hoi polloi?
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At least in the case of the law, it's because it's so steeped in precedent and tradition.
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According to a famous paraphrase of a quote by James D. Nicoll, "English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."
Seems appropriate.
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Also, note that it's de jure and du jour.
And one's Latin, and one's French, so they'd be pronounced differently (I presume, but then, I don't know French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure)
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That's why I specifically asked for the English pronunciation. I don't really care how they're pronounced in France or Lata.
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Lata? :wacko:
Oh, that's interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LATA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LATA)
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I may be pronouncing one or both incorrectly, but I when I say them, jure rhymes with "slur" and "per," while the vowel sound in jour is "oo," like the vowel in the word "who."
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First of all, what's a better word than "foreign" to describe any language other than English, the way that foreign describes any country other than this one? Anything other than non-English
What's wrong with foreign?
OK, is there any difference in the English pronunciation of de jure and de jour. Besides context, is there a way to tell which one is being said?
First off, it's du jour, not de jour. Secondly, a variety of pronunciations are acceptable for either. Merriam-Webster lists the most common one for du jour as "doo ZHUR" (with a French j sound). Personally, I say "doo ZHOOR".
M-W says that de jure is most often pronounced "day JOO-ray" (with an English j) and is also pronounced "day YOO-ray", with the original Latin y sound for the j.
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What's wrong with foreign?
Porter doesn't like it.
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And to be realistic, the majority of words we use in English were, at one point another, "foreign." Where are we going to draw the line at when we stop letting them in?
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Letting them in, nothing. How does that quote about English mugging other languages in alleys go?
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The one that Neutros gave in the third post?
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Yeah, that one. How does it go, again?
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Hey, it's not just me!!!
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Chacun à son goût. ;)
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Where are we going to draw the line at when we stop letting them in?
Is there some benefit to using a foreign phrase instead of an already-existing English one? If not, then what's the point?
What's wrong with "soup of the day" anyway?
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Here's one example: Old English had plenty of good words like cow, pig, and sheep. (Or their Old English counterparts of course) and we adopted the "foreign" (Norman) words boeuf, porc and mouton. In French they still only have one word for the animal and its meat, but since we adopted these foreign synonyms, we now have these lovely nuanced words beef pork and mutton and we can say something like "sheep meat" much more succinctly and elegantly.
"Soup of the day" has a different connotation than "soup du jour," don't you think? Isn't one more elegant, conveying a sense of fine dining culture (even if it's not always used that way anymore)? It's subtle, yes, but it's that subtle nuance and our huge vocabulary that makes English beautiful.
Not to mention the fact that a well-read English speaker also has a mastery of a lot of basic foreign phrases and has that much more the advantage when communicating in another language. We had Anglo-Saxon ways to say information, pensive and ridiculous before the Normans showed up, and I'm sure we would communicate just fine if we still used them. But now, any student of French can tell you how handy it is to be able to read a foreign text and not have to look up ever single instance of information, pensif and ridicule. Any student of a non-cognate language can tell you how much more difficult it is to achieve literacy when you don't have that advantage.
The human brain is capable of absorbing and using a lot more information than we give it credit for. Why limit ourselves in the name of efficiency when willingly educating ourselves can open up so many realms of opportunity? I promise you that none of the foreign words you've acquired over the years are sitting there wasting valuable storage space in your cerebral cortex.
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What's wrong with "soup of the day" anyway?
My goodness! Nothing at all! I entirely support the Soup of the Day movement, and advocate for national standards.
Today is Wednesday, March 4th and the soup of the day is Split Pea with Barley.
They could announce it on the radio.
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The one that Neutros gave in the third post?
>.<
:blush:
Have I mentioned that it's been a long day?
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What's wrong with "soup of the day" anyway?
What's wrong ungeradlic with it is that soup (http://www.bartleby.com/61/93/S0579300.html) is a foreign ælfremd word. What's wrong ungeradlic with "gereord (http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/tiff/oe_bosworthtoller/b0431.tiff) of the day" anyway?
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Is there some benefit to using a foreign phrase instead of an already-existing English one? If not, then what's the point?
Obviously the answer is yes, since people do find reasons to use foreign phrases. Sometimes it's to sound more educated and refined, and sometimes it's to communicate a slightly different meaning. Consider the English/French/Latin words kingly/royal/regal, all of which have essentially the same denotative meaning but somewhat different connotations.
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The one that Neutros gave in the third post?
>.<
:blush:
Have I mentioned that it's been a long day?
:lol:
I think I did the same thing with one of your posts recently.
Or several... :blush:
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What's wrong with "soup of the day" anyway?
What's wrong ungeradlic with it is that soup (http://www.bartleby.com/61/93/S0579300.html) is a foreign ælfremd word. What's wrong ungeradlic with "gereord (http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/tiff/oe_bosworthtoller/b0431.tiff) of the day" anyway?
It sometimes surprises me to find out which words are borrowings. I wouldn't have suspected that wrong was not from Old English, but I guess Old Norse words are tricky like that sometimes.
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"Soup of the day" has a different connotation than "soup du jour," don't you think?
I really don't. Except that the second indicates that the speaker thinks that French == elegant.
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Even if it does not connote elegance to you, you are aware that it connotes elegance to some people.
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And I would say that it's not just connoting "French makes me sound refined," it's connoting a nice restaurant, because culturally nice restaurants would use phrases like soupe du jour because French dining was seen as the hallmark of refined dining.
It's not just affected snobbery - it's a response to subtle changes in culture.
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"Waitress, what is the soup du jour?"
"Oh, that's just soup of the day."
Once we have a nationalized soup system, the soup du jour won't just be de facto, it will be de jure!
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"Waitress, what is the soup du jour?"
"Oh, that's just soup of the day."
:lol:
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I'm reminded of that exchange between the dalek and the cyberman about daleks having no concept of elegance.
I'd go with the argument that the word "soup" is French so there's nothing wrong with "soup du jour". Unless that isn't the case.
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Soup is an English word.
You know how I know?
Because you don't have to italicize it.
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"Soup du jour" is also English by that standard, as is "de jure".
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The Blue Book (legal citation manual) rule 7(b) says
Italicize non-English words or phrases unless they have been incorporated into common English usage. Latin words and phrases that are often used in legal writing are considered to be in common English usage and should not be italicized. However, very long Latin phrases and obsolete or uncommon Latin words and phrases should remain italicized. For example:
vin de table
ignorantia legis neminem excusat
sero sed serio
ex dolo malo non oritur action
The Book goes on to say one shouldn't capitalize things such as e.g., i.e., res judicata, quid pro quo, amicus curiae, certiorari, corpus juris, ab initio, obiter dictum, de jure, modus operandi, habeas corpus, non obstante verdicto, prima facie, mens rea, and en banc.
Oddly, it didn't mention du jour.
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Probably because it's neither Latin nor a legal term.
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So, we're all agreed that Porter is both wrong and full of it.
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Well that goes without saying.
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Can one be wrong in a conversation like this? I'm sure a lot of us can say we disagree with you but we can't say "Porter is full of it. He doesn't actually think that English would be better off without so many foreign loanwords."
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(http://nmviewpoint.typepad.com/new_mexico_viewpoint/images/2008/01/28/ap_yes_we_can399.jpg)
Yes we can!
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Can one be wrong in a conversation like this? I'm sure a lot of us can say we disagree with you but we can't say "Porter is full of it. He doesn't actually think that English would be better off without so many foreign loanwords."
So, now you think I'm wrong and full of it. :P
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on the other hand, think of all the poor languages that need to accomodate all the new English words.
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Is English coming into these languages because the langauges don't have adequate words for the ideas, or because English is the lingua franca and therefore somewhat cool?
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Yes.
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As Rivka said, some of both. New concepts from American culture are borrowed into foreign cultures, and rather than coin new words for them, they often borrow the English term. Also, sometimes things are borrowed just because people think it's cool.
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And then there are the weird adaptations of English loan words. In Hebrew, the back axle of a car is the "bek eksel". The front axle, however, is called "bek eksel kadmi" -- front 'back axle'.
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Is English coming into these languages because the langauges don't have adequate words for the ideas, or because English is the lingua franca and therefore somewhat cool?
yes, but I'd say mostly the first two reasons. Consider the IT sector. It is full of English words, because IT work is done in English, and there isn't neither time nor will to translate the terms into all the other languages. IT people think in English. The cool factor has nothing to do with this. Same with a lot of other professional fields.
The cool factor comes into play with youth-oriented products, mostly.
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Can one be wrong in a conversation like this?
Depends. (http://www.sakeriver.com/forum/index.php?topic=4105.msg357458#msg357458)
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I love the back axel!
I like when they translate the meaning of the word instead of adopting it - what do they call that phenomenon? Like in German, they say Fernsehen (far see) for television - so they just translated the word piece-for-piece instead of adopting it.
My favorite foreign translation is computer... in Japanese it's just konpyuutaa, (or pasokon, which is short for paasonaru konpyuutaa) but in Chinese it's dian nao - electric brain. I think we should start calling it an electric brain ourselves.
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In Hebrew it's also electric brain.
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what do they call that phenomenon?
calque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque)
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Yes! Calques rock.
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From the Wikipedia article:
# English long time no see calques simplified Chinese: ????; traditional Chinese: ????; pinyin: h?o ji? bu jiàn [5], via Chinese Pidgin English[6].
I was totally wondering that! I learned the phrase h?o ji? bu jiàn this week and was thinking "funny, this literally means "long time no see."
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we were revising idiomatic expressions in French today, and once again I am amazed at how many Polish idioms are literal translations of French. it must be due to the fact that French was widely spoken in artistocratic circles in the 17th/18th century, but really, if you want to use a Polish idiom in French, you have a really good chance of being understood.
just from today's lesson:
- se laisser mener par le bout du nez
- savoir sur le bout des doigts
- tirer le diable par la queue
- jeter l'argent par la fenetre
- avoir les jambes de laine (although we say cottonwool)
-un coup de foudre (speaking of love at first sight etc)
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Yes! Calques rock.
Wasn't that an Ian Hunter song? :blink:
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OK, I have some answers to why the phrases were bugging me.
I've got no problems with adopting words from other languages, but for some reason it bugs me when we use foreign phrases as single entities.
It seems to me that if "du jour" is acceptable in everyday English, we need to also have "du" and "jour" in everyday English as well.
Why? What is my justification for this claim?
Take your pick. Either a) the justification for this claim is left as an exercise for the interested reader or b) search me.
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Because it is often the phrases, rather than the individual words, that have accrued the cultural baggage and cachet that makes them worth using in certain situations.
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And that's what bugs me for some reason.
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You can't detach social capital from communication, Porter. Not in this world.
People quibble about how to approach language since that is the case. My response (being a typical Gen Xer with a humanities background) is equal parts sincerity, play/flouting and irony.