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Re: OT: For information only !

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 15, 2004, 13:30
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)

Replies

Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>
Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>