Any Port in a Storm - Loving the language

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May 25, 2013, 5:58am

Any Port in a Storm :: On the Plaza :: Where Words Collide :: Loving the language

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Topic: Loving the language (Read 951 times)

kerouac2
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #30 on Oct 4, 2011, 5:59am »

Of course, the first step in loving a language is to love a place where it is spoken. The Spanish tourist board has been creating some very nice ad campaigns targeting various interest groups to make people want to come to Spain. Here is an example showing the most famous football players of the Real Madrid, to elicit interest from their fans.

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lola
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #31 on Oct 18, 2011, 1:50am »

Kerouac. Have you used or heard used the phrase "ne plus ultra" in the past say two months? Year? Or do only American journalists say this kind of thing? Could you use it and sound natural? I'm not writing a book or anything, just wondering.

I did think at one time that I could write a novel in the light comedy vein featuring some of the characters from Fodors. I had a plot. Then I realized I wouldn't have the rhythms or the words for much of the dialogue without at least a couple of years' research overseas. I'd need a John D. and Katherine T. MaCarthur Foundation Grant.

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kerouac2
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #32 on Oct 18, 2011, 4:53am »

In the past two months? No, I don't think so. (Isn't it nec plus ultra?)

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hwinpp
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #33 on Oct 18, 2011, 7:29am »

In German 'non- plus- ultra' has been common for 20, 30 years? Maybe even longer.

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kerouac2
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #34 on Oct 18, 2011, 7:59am »

I only see it in advertising campaigns (the nec plus ultra of electric shavers... or whatever).

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auntieannie
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #35 on Oct 28, 2011, 2:52pm »

yes, it's not in the everyday language anymore as far as I am concerned. My dad may use it from time to time, but he's not a reference linguistically speaking.

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Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.

mickthecactus
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #36 on Dec 9, 2011, 1:27pm »

On the radio this morning was a German politician who spoke almost faultless English. Yet he persistently reversed the letters V and W so "revise" was pronounced "rewise" yet "work" was pronounced "vork" (verk).

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onlymark
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #37 on Dec 9, 2011, 4:55pm »

Yet they pronounce the word 'Volk' as in Volkswagen as it is. But the 'w' is also pronounced as a 'v'.
German confuses me still - 'ei' as in nein is pronounced as 'i' and 'ie' as in Sie is pronounced 'e'.
Plus the letter a is in the alphabet said as r, e is ay, i is e, j is yot, and y is epsilon.

And another thing - why do they have to have one of the few languages that when counting say the last number first? i.e. twenty four is four and twenty.
When you ask for a phone number of someone and they give it, like you often do in two digit numbers - like - twenty four, sixty seven, eighty nine, fifty three - you end up writing the second number first and then the 'tens' number - so the number above would be - vier und zwanzig (4 and 20), sieben und sechzig (7 and 60) ....etc

And another thing - why do you have to wait to right at the end of the sentence before they say the verb? It wound Mark Twain up something rotten.
And all this Der, Die, Das and changing them (the sex of the word) when you flit through nominative, dative and accusative?
Never mind having to use half a dozen or more capital letters in each sentence - and none of them know where a comma should go.

Finally, and to end the mini rant - one virtually sure way to tell if it is a German speaking English is to ask them how long they've been here or there. It takes a truly fluent English speaker not to say, 'since three years' or whatever the time span is.

However, I can only admire the amount of Germans who do speak English as opposed to the other way round.

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patricklondon
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #38 on Dec 14, 2011, 8:22am »

Quote:

And another thing - why do they have to have one of the few languages that when counting say the last number first? i.e. twenty four is four and twenty.

Erm...... who came down from Inverness, musically speaking?

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bjd
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #39 on Dec 14, 2011, 9:10am »

Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie?

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onlymark
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #40 on Dec 14, 2011, 11:02am »

Damn, I was going to say that.

Anyway, I'm sure it was just done that way to make it rhyme or fill up the syllables or something.

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mickthecactus
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Re: Loving the language
« Reply #41 on Dec 14, 2011, 5:12pm »

Dec 14, 2011, 8:22am, patricklondon wrote:

Quote:

And another thing - why do they have to have one of the few languages that when counting say the last number first? i.e. twenty four is four and twenty.

Erm...... who came down from Inverness, musically speaking?

Four and twenty virgins in the version that I know....

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