Re: OT: For information only !

Philippe Caquant scripsit:

> strangely enough, we don't really care to be regularly treated like
> dirt by tabloids from "the perfid Albion", but many of us strongly
> object to the idea of having to
> speak the same language as our American friends).
This took some decoding.  This is one of those places where getting
the idiom wrong reverses the meaning:  "don't care to be X" means
"strongly object to being X", whereas "don't care about being X"
means "are indifferent to being X".  You plainly (in hindsight)
wrote the first and meant the second.

If you tell me this is illogical (and it is), I'll point to
"un bel age" versus "le bel age".

(BTW, why is the cliche for the English "perfidious"?  From
the Hundred Years War till 1914, France and England were just
straight-up enemies.  Where does the element of betrayal come in?)

> I know Esperanto is a very sensible and off-topic
> matter here (in my opinion, mainly because it is very
> offending for many English speakers to imagine that
> another language, even artificial, could supplant
> English),
That is not at all the reason.  We ban auxiliary language advocacy
(of any language) because it leads to unproductive flame wars, and
for no other reason.

> one should not ban Esperanto as if it was
> leper. There are interesting (syntaxic) concepts in
> it, and I found several exciting ideas there. After
> all, these ideas Zamenhof just gathered from various
> natlangs, he invented little, IMO.
We don't ban it.  Any language may be discussed, but not
advocated.

> English is not endangered yet. The proof of it is that
> I'am writing this message in (broken) English.
Pretty good non-native English (as opposed to perfect non-native
English, which some of our members manage to write, Ghu only knows how).
Certainly not "broken".

--
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known;      John Cowan
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone;       jcowan@reutershealth.com
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind;   www.ccil.org/~cowan
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind.    --Tao 33 (Bynner)

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