Loan proverbs

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:40 AM +0000 2/15/07, Chris F Waigl wrote:
>Charles Doyle wrote:
>
>>  Our recent ruminations about "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur" got
>>me thinking about the (not-very-large?) category that I'll call
>>LOAN PROVERBS--proverbs uttered in a foreign language within
>>English discourse--as distinct from "calqued" proverbs or proverbs
>>that simply have analogs in other tongues or pseudo-foreign
>>constructions like "Nil illigitimi carborundum." And "true"
>>proverbs--propositions consisting of entire sentences--not just
>>phrases or idioms.
>>
>>  Last night on TV Dr. House said "Veni, vidi, vici." Then there are
>>"C'est la vie" and "Che sara sara." "Cogito ergo sum"?
>>
>
>Is "Che sera sera" really a loan? Maybe in the same sense as German
>"Handy" (mobile phone) and a whole slew of French words -- which are
>loaned from no particular foreign language though kind of look like
>English.

I was always fond of "le tennisman", although "le shampooing" has a
sort of, well, je ne sais quoi.

LH

>Free inventions on a theme.
>
>Chris Waigl
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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