ad hominem vs. intellectual inquiry

[Adassovsky]

P. Jones wrote:

>That's neither censorship nor prior restraint, I think; I believe that's
>more like "being fed up."  I don't know the French idiom, so my English
>one will have to do for now.

Well, when I am fed up, I put the message in the trash and respect other
people enough to let them discuss. There seems to be cultural differences
between USA and European people concerning the perception of such attitudes.

>If the participant believes that the French teachers are lying?  Yes.  If
>the participant believes that the American teachers are lying?  Yes.

I don't believe you really think so. The original message was pedantic,
directed right to my specialty, and implicated that language teachers from
all romance countries consciously lied because they were paid for it, so
that  all our University system is not free. Such an opinion deserved an
answer.

Now, I propose a subject, instead of going to the beach, although the
weather is very fine here on the Mediterranean :

Is French an "idiom", or a "Language" ?
I've just looked up in my dictionnary ( The concise Oxford dictionnary of
current English) and found :
Language : a vocabulary and way of using it prevalent in one or more countries.
Idiom : language of a people or country.

Aren't they touchy, these Frenchies !

Georges.