General TE tips

[Duck on Wheels]

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?

[Lise]

.... 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.

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.

[DirtDiva]

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.

[bikerz]

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.

Isn't it hard to get the red pen parks off your monitor?

[Trek420]

whatever

[DirtDiva]

You know it is, z!

[bikerz]

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?

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."

(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 )

[Veronica]

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.

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."

V.

[Lise]

Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz, early in the movie, where Margaret Hamilton (soon to be the Wicked Witch), tells Dorothy and her family that she's going to get an order to have Toto put down? Auntie Em says, "So and so (I can't remember her pre-witch name), if I weren't a good Christian woman, I'd tell you just what I think of you!" I think of that sometimes. Sort of a predecessor to V's version of "whatever".

[Veronica]

Elmira Gulch!

I love The Wizard of Oz. It's one of my three favorite movies - the other two being Gone with the Wind. I'd swoon for Rhett Butler. And Aliens, which I think is funny, romantic and scary. I think after Thom and Rhett, Michael Biehn is pretty sexy.

V.

[Starfish]

I'd swoon for Rhett Butler.

Oh man, my first major media crush after reading the book as a 5th grader (and 7th, and 9th, etc.). Last year I almost died laughing (to myself) when my 15 yo niece bought herself a DVD copy of GWTW and got her hands on a life-size cutout of Clark Gable as Rhett for her bedroom! I guess some crushes are timeless. Love Wizard of Oz, too, and your definition of WhatEVER!

[maillotpois]

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."

V.

You gotta do "whatever" with the handsign - your hands forming a "W" - What-EVER!. Petitepois has customized it to combine with the "L" handsign at your forehead - "What-EVER, Loser!"