"_Sorry_ f ür die lange Wartezeit!" v. "_遗憾_ =?UTF-8?Q?_f=C3=BCr_?=die lange Wartezeit!" [NT]

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Dec 3 01:33:19 UTC 2012


On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> What's in 50 years?

The supposed replacement of English as the word's second language by
Chinese. I don't believe that that could possibly happen. I'm very
chauvinistic about what we used to call "The Magic Language" back in
the '60's, when I was serving in the now-defunct USAR[my]EUR[rope]
"Yoosa-roar." So, my point was, why would any sensible person who
already knows English sufficiently well to be able to code-awitch into
and out of of it on his Website bother with learning everything that
you need to know about the Chinese language even to be able to choose
the proper word of the many that can be translated as _Entschuldigen_.

I stabbed in the dark, picking the one that probably implies
"apologetic," as opposed to those that may imply "embarrassed,
ashamed, sorrowful, politely contradictory, impolitely contradictory,"
etc.

But,

Youneverknow.

To borrow the catchphrase of an '80's comedian,

"It could happen!"

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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