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OT: I'd just like to say...

Hey All,

Since somebody brought up Mark Twain! Here's a favorite of mine from Huckleberry Finn. Edited a bit for political correctness.

...
“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”
“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them
learns people how to talk French.”
“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”
“NO, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said – not a single
word.”
“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”
“I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.
S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy – what
would you think?”
“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head – dat is, if he
warn’t white. I wouldn’t ‘low no [black man] to call me dat.”
“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know
how to talk French?”
“Well, den, why couldn’t he SAY it?”
“Why, he IS a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s WAY of saying it.”
“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ‘bout
it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
“No, a cat don’t.”
“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”
“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
“No, dey don’t.”
“It’s natural and right for ‘em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?”
“Course.”
“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from
US?”
“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk
different from us? You answer me that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a
man? – er is a cow a cat?”
“No, she ain’t either of them.”
“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther
of ‘em. Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he TALK like a man? You
answer me DAT!”
I see it warn’t no use wasting [more] words ... So I quit.
Click to expand...

Draw your own conclusions. :costumes:

-Ed-
 
CBris said:
If you have ever wondered why English speakers never bothered too much about foreign languages, then perhaps a study of Mark Twain's discourse on the German language will enlighten you. He once tried to learn German - well the results of his efforts can be read here. An interesting read.

English is such a lazy language, it is even bad at maths - one third Greek, one third Latin, one third French and one third Anglo Saxon and a dozen more fractions of good words from many other languages in the Empire. But English is an easy to learn and easy to use language. Which is probably why everyone else is better at speaking the language than a native English speaker...

...and of course, there has been a long running debate as to who really talks the talk better. The Brits or "our American cousins". Is it a zed or a zee that cripples words like realise, and why oh why can't people spell colour correctly?

But in the long run, English has to be the language of choice because you can swear and curse so wonderfully in it. :costumes:

So I congratulate and thank all you non-native English speakers for learning my father-tongue better than wot I never did - bless yer tiny cotton socks. :kilroy:
Click to expand...
:applause::applause::applause:
Thanks for this great contribution. Mark Twain is one of my favourite authors...;)

Best regards,

Stephan
 
By the way, that Mark Twain citation is also published in German and Germans find it equally amusing.
 
CBris said:
If you have ever wondered why English speakers never bothered too much about foreign languages, then perhaps a study of Mark Twain's discourse on the German language will enlighten you. He once tried to learn German - well the results of his efforts can be read here. An interesting read.

English is such a lazy language, it is even bad at maths - one third Greek, one third Latin, one third French and one third Anglo Saxon and a dozen more fractions of good words from many other languages in the Empire. But English is an easy to learn and easy to use language. Which is probably why everyone else is better at speaking the language than a native English speaker...

...and of course, there has been a long running debate as to who really talks the talk better. The Brits or "our American cousins". Is it a zed or a zee that cripples words like realise, and why oh why can't people spell colour correctly?

But in the long run, English has to be the language of choice because you can swear and curse so wonderfully in it. :costumes:

So I congratulate and thank all you non-native English speakers for learning my father-tongue better than wot I never did - bless yer tiny cotton socks. :kilroy:
Click to expand...
Son, Mark Twain is/was a staple in a young Southern American boy's life. Because of the nature of the language at the time (more freedom of speech than we have today), many words used in Mark Twain's work make the PC or left-wing crowd antsy and his work is taboo is many public schools.

Twain was the quintessential writer, most intelligent and quick, in my honest opinion (being a Southerner who became a DamnYankee) he was more eloquent than Shakespeare. He could write in the Queen's English or the dialect of the day in any country he was in.

I love the German discourse Chris. If you've never read it, go and find Letters From The Earth, A book written by Twain that is Satan's answer to the Bible. The book was bannedm, naturally, in its day and has never made too much of an appearence. But with the freedom of the 60's, someone found it and it started making its way about. It is one of the most charming and yet questionable books you will ever read.

A quote, since Ed et al are champions of Mark Twain:

"No matter how much one may hate Satan, anyone who has the power to control three-quarters of the world's people and all of its governments, has to be dealt with a great deal of respect!"

Now back to the topic at hand, where I reside in the USA, we have a unique drawl and rarely ever use more than two syllables in any word. The letter "R" is only used at the beginning of a word, for instance Rabbit, Road, Roast. But we never used "R" in a word; for instance, Forgot is Fo'got or Fa'gat (long "A"), Store becomes Sto (like stow), Together is togetha (long "A"). It is also comman among blacks and whites to pronouce their "V" like a "B", for instance Civil becomes Cibil. And there is a breed that my M-I-L comes from in one of those many isolated mountain clans that will insert an "R" where an "R" should never belong! Lion becomes Liron (say L and iron), wash becomes warsh, goin' becomes gorin',.

You see international members and visitors, American English is composed of words made up from the Queen's English and every other language in the world including native American words. Among the 88 people on the committee formed after the end of the American Revolution who voted on what would be America's new comman lanuage, because at the time, there was four prominent languages (five if you count Scottish and Irish Gaelic) spoken in the former 13 Colonies, English, german, French, and Spanish, English won out by a mere 1 vote over German. So had it not been for that one vote, America could have been speaking a bastidized German as its native tongue in lieu of English.

But we retain everything, Russian, German, Spanish, French (in da Bayou John Ah tink dey be Arcadians), Asian, Native Indian, all. It was so funny when I was working the Tour de Pont bike race back in the 90s, listening to Phil Liggett try and pronounce Native American words! Paul Sherwin has about the same problem. But the Aussies had no problem at all! :icon_lol: Seems we are cousins mates, after all the lot of us degenerated from misfits and prisoners or slaves. :ernae:

Caz
 
Very intresting Cazzy...I'm from the south too...


And Twain was my hero as a child....:applause:
 
Hah! I wish I really knew what language I'm supposed to speak then. The only thing "Brit" about me is the passport. Dad grew up in Cockney London, granddad was an hossiffer anna Gentelman and then Daily Express man somewhere. Great-great granddad escaped the potato famine and came from Donegal. Mum and her side were German and spoke "Plattdütsch" - you German members will know all about that. (Anna and Anneke will know that issue).

Anyways, at one time I was privileged to teach RSAF technicians - are there any BAe or MD guys aboard here who've done the Saudi bit?

The point is, if you really want to confuse a non-English speaker, just pick a word, any word and go through the various possible meanings of it. My favourite "any word" is DRAW and its soundalikes such as DRAWER and DRAWERS.

My students could usually manage a couple or three meanings, but try explaining that drawers is an item of ladies underclothing and not (just) the plural of people who hav an illustrating talent or who are extracting money from their accounts or arriving at a conclusion...:isadizzy:

...not to mention a small valley in the American English, or pull out the drawer and not draw out the puller.

So whilst we do have an easy language as such, there are well over a quarter of a million words (if memory serves me well) that do actually have a place in the language and yet we can get by with as few as 7 or 800 base words and even sound really lucid with a couple of thousand ("Sun" journalist) or extremely eloquent with the twenty odd thousand words a "Times" journalist might have.

Now I currently live in Bavaria and the local German can be unintelligble to someone with a northern background. I guess it could be the equivalent of putting a guy from the Bronx in Blue-Grass country. But knowing the basics, I get by - as long as I remember to say Grüß Gott (greet God) instead of "Hi" or "Hallo". And if I want a jam doughnut (not the kind with a hole through - damyankeefood!) then I daren't ask for a Berliner; I must ask for a Krapfen but if I want a doughnut (as in round things with holes through the middle, commonly eaten by New York cops according to my TV) then I simply ask for...

A doughnut!

Words are funny old things really...
 
Ya Piglet I'm with you; let's not cut out the historical truth because someone might be offended......:isadizzy: Scares me where the world is going.
 
200_Simpsons_Donuts-l.jpg


:costumes:
 
Don't get me started about Finnish language :costumes:

Here's couple examples, these are real words

keskiväliulosottoturbiinireaktorikammiokäytäväkotelointisovitevälystetukirimastokiinnike

(means center mid-outlet-turbine reactor chamber port-housing-fitting support-struss-structure holder)

Or this is actually rank in Finnish airforce: lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas

( I'm so not going to translate that :banghead:)

Or worlds longest infinitive palindrom is saippuakauppias

(means soap vendor)

That's a few of them, but trust me, there's many more :icon_lol:
 
Hey All,


All I did to make that selection "politically correct" was take out a couple instances of the N word. No real biggie - the text still says what it says - that according to Twain (through Jim) men speak english.

Finnish are all individual lunatics , nobody understands 'em, but it helps a lot if you're one too.
Click to expand...

Kittos from a fellow Finn - by heritage. The language is incredible. You could point out that every consonant gets pronounced in those words as well.

-Ed-
 
This is finnish cover of YMCA. Probably THE weirdest video I've ever seen, just look at the background dancers :costumes: :costumes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWB2e75BQuw

And I can make a little wav file where I read those words in finnish if anyone wants to hear :kilroy:
 
Lionheart said:
They say that for people who speak other languages, such as German, French, Italian, etc, that English is a very difficult language to learn.
Click to expand...

I hope you forgot the "not".

I personally found english - except for a few traps - the easiest foreign language to learn.

It made learning french a bit easier.

Fortunately, I only had to learn a fairly easy combination of languages, back in my parents' school days russian was madatory plus an option for either english or french (or latin)!
My dad was a bit crazy and learned all of them (except latin), although he admittedly never used french ever after.



CBris said:
Now I currently live in Bavaria and the local German can be unintelligble to someone with a northern background.
Click to expand...

Make that "northern german". Bavarians are ETs on earth! :isadizzy: :icon_lol:

And if I want a jam doughnut (not the kind with a hole through - damyankeefood!) then I daren't ask for a Berliner; I must ask for a Krapfen but if I want a doughnut (as in round things with holes through the middle, commonly eaten by New York cops according to my TV) then I simply ask for...

A doughnut!
Click to expand...

I only know "Berliner" by the name of "Pfannkuchen" (literally "pan cake") and "Pfannkuchen" by the name of "Eierkuchen" (litterally "egg cake"; the real pancake though! Straight from the pan.).
This generally makes for a lot of confusion if you're talking to someone from western Germany.



MudMarine said:
CBris: "Ich bin ein Berliner"! I'm a type of German donut!:costumes:
Click to expand...
:costumes:
 
[YouTube]GK907TwM7q0[/YouTube]

All free men, where ever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefor as a free man, I take pride in the words: Ish bin ein Behlineh
 
I wan my cluss spellin be, so I pryde miself in my spellun!! :medals:
 
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