Hispanofranglais

[Boatti, Stephen]

My comment had to do with the French speaker's remark, "as we say in
French." To me this implied she either did not know (was ignorant) that the
word is Spanish in origin, or that it has been borrowed into English and
thus needs no explanation to an English speaker, or both. My comment, while
flip, was not pejorative, just factual.


Steve

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Beverly Flanigan [mailto:flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU]
Sent:   Monday, March 05, 2001 2:20 PM
To:     ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:        Re: Hispanofranglais

"Ignorance" is not the issue here.  Words are generally adapted to local or
in-country pronunciation norms, no matter the country.  The French source
clearly knows what the word means; she's simply changed the
pronunciation--or borrowed the British pronunciation, as Robertson
suggests.  We've discussed this phenomenon several times on the list, I
believe.

At 12:04 PM 3/5/01 -0500, you wrote:
>This shows that it's not only Americans who are ignorant of the origins of
>words.
>
>
>Steve
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>From:   David M. Robertson [mailto:dmsnake at usit.net]
>Sent:   Sunday, March 04, 2001 11:46 AM
>To:
>Subject:        Hispanofranglais
>
>I saw a TV news segment last night on a new French law mandating that there
>be
>women candidates for certain elective offices. They interviewd a French
>female
>politician who (speaking English) said something like: Politics in France
>has been
>a male culture, or, as we say in French, a "macho" culture.
>
>She pronounced it in what I would consider the British fashion, as
>"match-o." This
>would make me think that it was adopted into French from British English,
>rather
>than directly from Spanish, or even from American English.
>
>    Snake


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm