One more demonstration that conservatives in the USA are losing their marbles

[fpb]

The opening sentence - the opening sentence, mind you - of today's Dennis Prager column:

One of the reasons for the ascendance of the English-speaking world has been that the English language is almost alone among major languages in having the word "earn."

The man evidently knows no foreign language, and, what is more, does not expect any of his readers to. Incidentally, whatever he was paid for this column was not money well earned.

Comments

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee. Ha!

I thought the reason for the ascendance of the English-speaking world was English empire-building. English is not a particularly good language, in terms of being easy to learn and easy to speak.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes, funny how three centuries of guns, gunships and gold seem less important to Mr Prager than the existence of an expression he deems untranslatable.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I often hear things along this line - I guess it's folk-knowledge. you know, the small island tribe that "has no word for war!" First of all, the Sapir-Worf hypothesis has been pretty much disproven, so the lack of a specific word does not mean that the concept doesn't exist.

Actually, I don't really need to make any other points.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, a language which "doesn't have the word for" something that exists in the society that speaks it uses a short phrase to describe that something. Eventually, that short phrase becomes a word.

Ne c'est pas? Or, today, just "pas?"

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Not always.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Not always.

It takes time. Did you know that "always" was one of those compounds? Germanic languages, like English, tend to compound with especial speed and enthusiasm.

Incidentally, French tends to do it more by slurring and elision. Both ways work ok, provided that the listeners know what the speakers mean. English just makes it easier to trace the linguistic history of the word's development.

For an English example of both, try "goodbye." That's "God be with you," both compounded and extensively elided and slurred.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there's always gonna be more concepts than words in use. Certainly not the other way around. Also, I wish I knew more about French! It's the one language I really can't get the hang of.

More examples of Germanic-style compounds: nevertheless, another, bedroom, homeschool

Example of French-style compounds: howdy!

You often get borrowed words from other languages (deja vu) and coined words that use common suffixes or prefixes, like blogosphere or snarktastic