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From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428)
Subject: Re: ESPERANTO - SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM SPAM SPAM
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Reply-To: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com
Organization: Merrill Lynch Europe
References: <3r9231$hpb@news.univ-rennes1.fr>
Distribution: inet
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 10:02:34 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <3r9231$hpb@news.univ-rennes1.fr>, Francois Toutain
<ftoutain@rennes.enst-bretagne.fr> writes:
>I know a bit more english that that, but even though I wouldn't count myself
>as an english speaker. I have been practicing it for about 15 years, and still
>I feel rather puzzled with a number of english features.
>An example: take a short verb ("get", "put") and add one or more pre- or post-
>positions ("on", "up", "with", ...). Then you get a new verb, but what on earth
>does it mean ? The only way is to recall any (actually used) combination.
>For instance I know that make + up means "put colors onto one's face"...except
>if you say "I make up my mind", this means that I make a choice.
>So make + down + mind means "I can't make a choice" ?!? (please tell me :-)

That's why I always thought Basic English was a bogus idea.  OK, so having
the phrase "put up with" means that you don't need any words above the basic
850 but what the hell has it to do with "tolerate".

Still, I once read a piece of scientific text translated into BE and I have
to say that (a) the BE was very clear and (b) it seemed (as far as I could
tell) to capture the extact sense of the original (non-basic) English.

>Everytime I write a paper in english and I have it read by some english-native friend,
>he says "I understand what you mean, but I wouldn't have used these words". Believe me,
>this is very disappointing.

This problem exists in almost every language but I think it's worse with English
than with many others.  The answer is to avoid native English speakers!  As long
as your German/Italian/whatever colleagues understand you that's OK.  (As a Finnish
friend (busy talking to a German colleague in English) once said:  It's so much
harder talking English when you're around!)

Of course, the answer's **Esperanto** because there's a lot less of that "that's not
the way we say it": the speech community is more diverse and native speakers are
not particularly influential so the standard of what's acceptable is much
looser than in English.

-- jP --

