Re: TECH: Official languages of the list
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, August 18, 2004, 10:42 |
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On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:49:44 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
> Well, to be honest, Technical words are a hell of a lot easier than
> everyday words, due to the fact that they're all from Latin.
*nods* I remember explaining "cliff" as "precipice" to a French
speaker once, whereupon the others chided me for "explaining a simple
word with a complicated word". Yes, but the complicated word is
Romance :p
(Similarly, "ameliorate" may be more understandable to a Frenchman
than "make better", though the converse is probably true for most
Anglophones. Or the Italian who told me that "injection" is lots
easier to understand than "shot" or "jab".)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>