Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,sci.lang,alt.usage.english
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From: hatunen@netcom.com (DaveHatunen)
Subject: Re: English importation of words (was Re: Is '#' a "pound sign" or what?)
Message-ID: <hatunenDnvC0E.4ps@netcom.com>
Organization: Next week we've just got to get organized
References: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960228115847.2106A-100000@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu> <825589254snz@gbutler.demon.co.uk> <DnqyAr.1z5@network.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 23:02:38 GMT
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Sender: hatunen@netcom2.netcom.com

In article <DnqyAr.1z5@network.com>,
Mike Collins <collim@anubis.network.com> wrote:

[...]

>Well said, Geoff!  As an Englishman with an interest in the English 
>language, who spent seven years working in Paris (fifteen years ago) and 
>who married a French girl whilst there; who learned French, and whose wife 
>has now learned English, I consider myself something of an expert on this 
>topic.

That makes you an expert on how the average Brit feels about French and
the French?

> I actually find that there is a good degree of affection between 
>the French and the English from both sides. 

I should hope so. It does facilitate the home life.

>I was always treated as 
>something of a mini-celebrity while I was there, simply through being an 
>Englishman with an interest in improvement of my French pronounciation and 
>vocabulary. If there is any intolerance, I perceive it as being more with 
>the English than with the French.

Of course, the fact that the French had to beg the English for help in
two world wars might have had an effect.

Still, France is passing laws to obliterate English words from the
landscape, while the English keep right on merrily using and abusing
French words, so you seem to have a curious definition of "tolerance".

[...]

>The French do this too. For example, they have adopted the term "WC" for 
>"toilet". Nobody knows that it stands for Water Closet, but they pronounce 
>it "Doob-le-Vay-Say", as a french person would read the initials. It is 
>occasionally also known as "Le Watter" (also from water, as we have 
>adopted "Loo" from L'eau - meaning water).

Or the French cigarettes named "High Life" and pronounced "Heeg Leaf".

[...]



-- 


    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *               Daly City California                  *
    *   Between San Francisco and South San Francisco     *
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