I just heard on French radio that a competition has been launched among French students to find or invent French words to replace the English words above.
There was an interview with a linguist who thought it was all a lot of nonsense because a) the activity represented by these words was of no interest beyond the groups using them to describe activities that were of no interest
b) it was much more important to teach students in France to use French properly and correctly because correct…
X is a qualified frogman, pilot and free-fall parachutist. Does anyone know what the latter is supposed to mean? I've always assumed that free falls are part and parcel of being a parachutist.
Sorry... I've just lifted this from my reply to the German Manuals question about recent reform of the German language..
That... with respect to the dative and genitive case as used in many languages... that ..
...interestingly, this Wiki article suggests English does not have a proper genitive case ...but rather, a possessive ending, -’s .
And here , it's suggested that in English, the accusative and dative pronouns merged into a single objective pronoun used in both roles... ....and that…
I haven't come across this term before. Lap of the gods+, yes; +hand of fate, yes.
It was in the Australasia and Pacific branch thus: You can control your fate at an intersection to a large degree. Once you're on a plane you're in the lap of fate.
I hardly object to the term but I am curious. Any views?
Nationality describes someone from a particular nation such as Czech, Zimbabwean, Korean, etc. This description is quite obvious to any English speaker.
Californian, Queenslander, etc. refer to people coming from those states. Manitoban, Newfoundlander, etc. refer to people from those provinces. Sydneysider, Londoner, New Yorker, Parisian, etc. refer to people from those cities.
Now for the question: Do we have words in English that are the equivalent of nationality for other political units…
Lately I've been feeling really stupid. And since I don't like feeling stupid I thought I should try and get some edumacation. Any suggestions of how I should go about reversing my stupidity.
Laura Chinchilla is expected to be elected president of Costa Rica on Sunday. I'm curious about her family name. My dictionary says that chinchilla may ultimately be from Aymara, and that's a long way from Costa Rica. Does anyone know how the family got the name? Has anyone run across any other Chinchillas, and if so where?
When I was a young boy, I had a paper route that covered only a few blocks on the West Side of Chicago: along Washtenaw and Talman Avenues from 12th Street to 14th Street. I delivered about 120 papers each morning; there were very few houses or flats that didn't subscribe to one or another newspaper.
Now, I live in an apartment building where there are six apartments per floor, and I subscribe to two newspapers. I am the only tenant on the floor who has papers delivered, but it may be that my…
R.I.P. Abraham Sutzkever the last literary figure of note in Yiddish, and unlikely to have any successors. Olev hashalom.