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Re: This day

From:caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...>
Date:Saturday, March 24, 2007, 9:49
>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