Re: This day

>Leon Lin <leon_math@...> wrote:
>If I'm not mistaken, quite a few languages, or at least conlangs,
>use "this day" for "today" (correct me if I'm wrong).
I find interesting the following quote from Guy Deutscher's
book "The Unfolding of Language" (p.167-8):

Once upon a time, in the days before records of Latin began, there
must have been a phrase 'hoc die,' which meant '(on) this day.'  By
the time of attested Latin, this phrase had eroded and fused into
one word, 'hodie' 'today.'  Later on, in Old French, 'hodie' was
ground down into a meagre 'hui,' but the French soon found that they
couldn't utter this paltry syllable with enough emphasis, so they
piled up more words, and started saying 'au jour d'hui,'
literally 'on the day of this-day.'  But with repeated use, this
became a set phrase, and so it fused into one word
again: 'aujourd'hui.'  And nowadays in colloquial French, the same
cycle is beginning all over again. A mere 'aujourd'hui' is not
deemed to have sufficient presence, and so to emphasize it, the
French have started saying 'au jour d'aujourd'hui'-literally 'on the
day of on-the-day-of-this-day.'  As you can imagine, this usage is
frowned upon by purists, but things have now sunk so low that you
can find the phrase in practically any French dictionary, even if
still labelled 'colloquial.'

Charlie