Re: OT: Official language post

On Sat, 29 Mar 2003, Joe wrote:

> I think the reason is the disproportionate number of compound words
> in(other) Germanic langs.  That and the high amount of replacement of native
> Germanic words with Romance ones.  And a good deal of the Germanic words in
> English have Romance-based synonyms, which helps with deciphering Romance.
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.

Tristan.

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