Further evidence of the demise of English as world language

[Mark Mandel]

No offense meant, Wilson. I think I noticed this one more than some others
you may have posted because the matrix is Basque (which BTW I might or might
not have recognized without help in this case, and it matters not a tinker's
damn to me whether I would have).

Not knowing the source site and not being able to read Basque, I couldn't
tell whether this was, as you say, a term of trade jargon or a loan into
everyday e-conversation.

And ... Sorry, what was your original point?

m a m

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd call it "commercial jargon," like "in stock" and "out of print /
> stock" or the stem now standard in Russian, _reprintn-_, used by any
> number of on-line sellers of books in languages other than English.
> But, even if we accept as the proper account of the occurrence of
> English _outlet[a]_ in a Basque text as "just a borrowing of a
> technical term" and take into consideration your personal experience
> as unique and unheard of heretofore, to the extent that, till now, I
> was totally unaware of the existence of the phenomenon described, how
> does that vitiate my point?
>
> And why is it that, though I've posted many of these in an effort to
> be, as you correctly note, "amusing," this one alone, unexpectedly,
> has drawn a response?
>
> If I've annoyed anyone by insinuating that he wouldn't recognize
> Basque behind the most casual of glances, please accept my most
> heartfelt apologies.
>
> And I also apologize for cheating. Someone posted something whose
> point was completely beyond my ken only yesterday. As I did when I was
> a student, I waited for someone else to ask the question. No one else
> did. So, rather than reveal that I was both unable to understand yet
> interested in what was obviously clear to everyone else or of no
> interest to anyone, else, I dropped back five yards and punted, simply
> deleting the post.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 8:31 AM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Further evidence of the demise of English as world
> language
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Amusing, but just a borrowing of a technical term not in the host
> language's
> > vocabulary.
> >
> > Working at Honeywell Bull, in Billerica, Mass. in the 1980s, I often
> heard
> > conversations between engineers in Chinese, thickly larded with words
> like
> > "code" and "subroutine".
> >
> > m a m
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> "Datorren astean OUTLETa [emphasis original] eskainiko dugu
> >> www.elkar.com gunean ..."
> >>
> >>
> >> For the polyglottally unhip, the language is Standard(ized) Basque.
> >>
> >> -Wilson
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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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>

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