frienemies, to bogart

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, I had in mind the "force, coerce" meaning WRT my use of English
instead of either the official "national" language - usually Spanish,
French, German, or Russian - or the minority language. Using the
official language or the minority language would, of course make it
easy for the foreign booksellers to deal with my problem, whereas
using English, in effect, coerces them into dealing with a language of
which they almost certainly have only a passive knowledge. But I've
yet to discover a site where English is simply unknown.

The booksellers reply in English ranging from broken to native-level
(the English of the head of bookselling at the Astur_shop_ has an
*excellent* command of English) or in the national language. Only
*very rarely* do I get a reply in the minority language. Russian and
German booksellers, who are never themselves speakers of the minority
language and who usually also have parallel sites in English,
generally reply in English.

I never write in the national languages, my knowledge thereof being
totally passive. But, usually, throwing ing in a word or a phrase from
the minority language is a smooth move, since it lets them know that
at least one - or, perhaps, even some - speakers of the most powerful
language in the world are interested in their 3,000-speaker language,
e.g. Upper Aragonese. They are usually amazingly appreciative of this
kind of thing.

Interestingly enough, if the language is in relatively little danger
of becoming extinct in this century, e.g. Catalan, you find members of
that ethnic group who consider the whole idea of trying to make
Catalan the official language of Catalonia to be a waste of time.

-Wilson

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Victor<aardvark66 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  Victor <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: frienemies, to bogart
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That song, or another that uses the same line ("Don't bogart that joint,
> my friend, pass it over to me...") is in Easy Rider, sung by Fraternity
> of Man.
>
> http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/easyrider/dontbogartme.htm
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbY9ePebWB8
>
> I also found a couple of sites where, because of that line, the meaning
> is re-interpreted as "steal". If you look at the complete lyrics that
> makes little sense.
>
> Â  Â VS-)
>
> Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>> also in the OED (draft entry of June 2005) and in HDAS, with two
>>> senses: (mostly AAVE) 'force, coerce'; 'hog' (esp. a joint), as in
>>> the song "Don't Bogart Me" ("Don't bogart that joint, my friend").
>>>
>
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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

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