Re: OT: Official language post
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, March 29, 2003, 16:00 |
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Tristan McLeay scripsit:
> Rarely are they synonyms, actually. Related words with similar meanings,
> yes, but in many of the ones with a Germanic equivalent, the
> Romance-derived word is much classier, eg. house vs mansion.
Sometimes it's funny. The newfangled fashion of labeling the introductory
section of a book "Foreword" instead of "Preface" was much denounced by
19th-century purists, for "Preface", despite its Latin origin, is sound old
English of 16th-century vintage, whereas "Foreword" is a loan translation
from the German "Vorwort".
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
--_The Hobbit_
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