... another sign of the decline of English

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Wilson Gray<hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: ... another sign of the decline of English
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yes, I was being ironic. I am something of a linguistic bibliophile.
> So, I deal with lots of foreign booksellers, among whom the use of
> such English terms as
>
> bestsellers  in stock  out of stock  credit or debit card  login
> logout  by airrmail  (ON) SALE!  used books  NEW RECEIVES!
>
> is no longer surprising. It's also the case that international
> booksellers sometimes have English versions of their sites. Of course,
> in such cases, phraseology of English origin is to be expected. The
> version of the site in English may be the work of a professional
> translator whose native language is probably English. In some of these
> cases, it's fairly obvious that the English site was put together by
> some local nerd using a pocket dictionary who didn't even use
> cross-referencing in order to pick the right English form. However,
> since, if I attempted to post a question to customer services in
> Gascon or Asturian, it would be, from their point of view, the same
> kind of gibberish, I give them all "A" for effort.
>
> Though I post questions in English, I throw in words and phrases from
> the local minority language, instead of using French, Spanish, or
> whatever, so as not to appear to be bogarting them by using English
> and to show them that I'm down with their attempt to keep their
> government from wiping out their language in the name of "national
> unity."
>
> A Berber friend of mine once told me that the Berber nationalists
> prefer to be addressed in French or English and not Arabic.
>
> OTOH, I once knew a Catalan who felt that the attempt, one of whose
> leaders is an old buddy of mine from M.I.T., to make Catalan, and not
> Spanish, the official language of Catalonia is sheer assholery.
>
> "Different strokes," as they say.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Mark Mandel<thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: ... another sign of the decline of English
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I assumed so. But I'm wondering about the decline of Spanish, with this
>> Romance version of SWAYDonym for (p)seud=C3=B3nimo.
>>
>> Mark
>>

I forgot to mention that, if there's any problem with the spelling of
the Spanish word, then the fault is mine and not that of the site. I
didn't use Copy & Paste and I made at least one - obviously failed -
attempt to correct my misspelling. The site has the spelling,
_seudonimo_ [sEu 'do ni mo], with an acute over the first "o."

-Wilson

>> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 8:57 AM, <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Decline? This looks more like further evidence of "world domination." Or
>>> Â is Wilson being ironic?
>>>
>>> In a message dated 7/11/09 8:09:56 PM, hwgray at GMAIL.COM writes:
>>>
>>> > From the site of a bookseller in Spain:
>>> > "Elige tu suedonimo o _nickname_"
>>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> -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
>



--
-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

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