decimate

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jul 21 20:06:40 UTC 2010


On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Inglish

"Inglish?!" "Inglish?!" What is this "Inglish"?! That's *Ang-lish!"

Ripped off from an Army buddy's German girlfriend, who once exclaimed,
over dinner,

"Veal?!" "Veal?!" Was iss diss "veal"?! Das ist *Kalbfleisch*!

Sadly, she was the only German at the table and I was the only GI
there who knew enough German to understand that she was indignantly
(and unconsciously) questioning the use of the "wrong" *English* word
and substituting for it the correct faux-ami - clearly the English
word must be _*calfflesh_ or _*calfmeat_ - *German* word.
Unfortunately for her, *English*-speakers once actually *lost* a war
to French-speakers.

-Wilson


Wilson

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



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