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Re: Adopting a plural

From:Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 6, 2004, 10:44
 --- John Cowan <jcowan@...> skrev:
> and rhinoceroses (or just rhinos). > > But I took the original examples like "virii" to be > about *misapplied* > foreign plural endings; other such words would be > "agendae" and "hoodla". >
In French, many people say "bliniss" instead of "blini" (russian-style pancakes). Why ? Because it is written "blinis" (the -s being the mark of plural in French, added [but who knows it ?] to the -i which is the mark of plural in Russian - in that case, anyway. But to be logical, if we prounounce "bliniss" (which is of course nonsensical), then we should write it "blinisses", to comply with French orthograph. But if we write it "blinisses", then people, still aware that this is an exotic word, will probably prounounce it "blinissezes" ? But if we pronounce it "blinissezes", than... etc, etc. (Actually, the best solution would be to write "des blines" and pronounce it like Russian "blin". But why should we make it simple if we can make it complicated ?). This reminds me the Alsacian story about a woman named by the French (common) name of "Lagarde" (=guard). - German invasion: all French names should be translated. Madame Lagarde becomes Frau Wache. - French coming back: all German names should be written according to French orthographic rules. Madame Wache becomes Madame Vache (=cow). - New German invasion: Madame Vache becomes Frau Kuh. - French coming back: Frau Kuh becomes Madame Cul (cul = ass, backside). - New German invasion: Madame Cul becomes Frau Arsch. This is all very unpleasant indeed. ===== Philippe Caquant Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).