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Ah, I'd never get rid of it. My sister bought a globe once at a garage sale because it has the Soviet Union on it. That's something I'd like. A globe from 1960, the year I was born. The world as it was when I came in. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
I go off surfing for a dog trainer, come back and TE gals are sleeping with the OED. You gals are kinky :eek: this is a family forum.
It's OK. The kids don't know what the OED is. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
Trek - did you find a trainer? I highly recommend Bay Area Dog Training - Mike is awesome.
new drift.....I don't like vermouth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veronica
When you are speaking of someone's strengths, "fort" is correct, however, the musical term is "for-tay."
However I admit that we continue to corrupt the English language and pronounciations evolve despite the efforts of the grammar police to lock our language in place.
From http://thesaurus.reference.com/
for·te Pronunciation Key (fôrt, fôrt, frt)
n.
Something in which a person excels.
The strong part of a sword blade, between the middle and the hilt.
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[French fort, from Old French, strong, from Latin fortis. See fort.]
Synonyms: forte, métier, specialty, thing
These nouns denote something at which a person is particularly skilled: Writing fiction is her forte. The theater is his métier. The professor's specialty was the study of ancient languages. Mountain climbing is really my thing.
Usage Note: The word forte, coming from French fort, should properly be pronounced with one syllable, like the English word fort. Common usage, however, prefers the two-syllable pronunciation, (fôrt), which has been influenced possibly by the music term forte borrowed from Italian. In a recent survey a strong majority of the Usage Panel, 74 percent, preferred the two-syllable pronunciation. The result is a delicate situation; speakers who are aware of the origin of the word may wish to continue to pronounce it as one syllable but at an increasing risk of puzzling their listeners.
Thanks Snap, I've had some responses and trying to narrow it down to the right one for the fearocious beast. I googled and found several Bay Area Dog Training Groups, which one is Mike in? Can you PM me Mikes info?
Thought we only drift in Triathlons?
Words imported from other languages often change pronunciation in the process. They also often change meanings. I think that in French "forte" means strong, while in English it means strength, as in a thing that you're good at. I could be wrong in that instance, but there are plenty of other examples of the phenomenon. These kinds of shifts in meaning and pronunciation are so common that you pretty much have to accept them as correct. Some other examples:
Queen in English comes from kvinne (pron: kvinn-uh) in Norse, which simply means woman.
Husband in English comes from husbond (pron: hoos-bohnd) in Norse, which means farmer (a meaning maintained in "animal husbandry").
And what was the one I saw the other day ... Oh yeah! One of my grad students is French. In an essay in English he used the term savoir faire. He used it, I think, in the French sense, i.e. simply as knack, or know-how, or skill. But moved to English it also carries a bit of a flair, precisely because it is imported. So it has some mystique, some je-ne-sais-quois, some romance, some .... hmmm, is there an Anglo-Saxon word at all that expresses this? Or is the mysterious quality and status of an import word something we can only express with other (meaning-modified) import words? ;)
Precious little romance in the Anglo-Saxon, it seems. My ancestors: We invade you. We win. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by bikeless in WI
The name of my profession, "midwife" is from old German, and means "with woman". Although I prefer what they call us in French -- sagefemme. It looks and sounds beautiful, and means wise woman.
How do "they" know for sure that the genesis of an English word is from one language or another? It can't be an exact science. I mean, the Italian forte has the same latin root as the French forte and also means "strong" (rather than the generally held belief that it means "play as loud as you can until your music teacher covers her/his ears and begs you to stop abusing her/his precious piano so" ;)).
I often think I couldn't hack life as a mod - Id find it so veery dificilt too rezist squigeling my red teecher pen al ovr peepils' posts. :rolleyes:
There's always the fallback to the the word "whatever", in all it's various intonations. It's like the "white flag of surrender" signaling a complete failure of vocabulary. That, and the loss in some conversations of verbs to express speech. I've overheard conversations very similar to this one: "I'm all, whatever, and he goes, whatever, we're like, you know, whatever."Quote:
is there an Anglo-Saxon word at all that expresses this? Or is the mysterious quality and status of an import word something we can only express with other (meaning-modified) import words?
(I seem to be feeling particulary grinchy this morning - time for a bike ride in the cold fog! What happened to spring? We went straight from winter rain to summer gloom and fog :( )
Isn't it hard to get the red pen parks off your monitor? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by tlkiwi
whatever ;)
You know it is, z! :D
I'll track it down when I get home - the business is actually called Bay Area Dog Training - Mike Hatjes is the owner. I'm sure I've got his card at home.
I drift all over the place.....:rolleyes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
I like "whatever." But I think I use it more to say, "I think you're an idiot, b*tch or some other derogatory word and I think what you're doing is stupid, rude or just plain wrong. But it doesn't really affect me so... whatever."Quote:
Originally Posted by bikerz
V.