Top Ten: English terms the French want barred

TheLocal.fr ^ | 24 May 2013 17:49 GMT+02:00 | Ben McPartland

[Olog-hai]

When it comes to fighting off the invasion of English words, the French Resistance has had mixed fortunes over the years. Nevertheless, the fight goes on.

With the help of the Ministry of Culture, here’s a list of the latest English terms that French authorities want deported. …

[SampleMan]

The great advantage of English is the way it has quite consciously and shamelessly imported words as needed. It has helped it become the de facto world language.

There are already ~1600 French words in English language, but new French words are rare. Why? Because the French have stopped innovating. If the French had developed the world's leading search engine, the computer, or hash tags, we would be using French words in relation to those.

[Sherman Logan]

Of the total words in the English language (a remarkably difficult concept to define, BTW) somewhere around 30% are French in origin, with another 30% Latin.

Of course, French words are themselves Latin in origin, so 60% of our language is of Latin origin.

Another 30% or so is of Germanic origin, mostly Anglo-Saxon, though these tend to be the most commonly used words, so that of the words actually spoken every day the vast majority are Germanic.

[SeminoleCounty]

I was thinking English words French would want banned were actually “shower....bath....soap....flush....clean....shave armpit and leg....”

[A'elian' nation]

Blame it on The Boss or The Beatles. It’s Rock Music’s fault.

After all, it wasn’t Reagan that brought down the Soviet Union; it was the Beatles. >sarc

[Savage Beast]

But foreign words imported into English tend to convey subtle meanings that give English a great deal of nuances and color, e.g. taboo—ranch—boondocks—yen—kamakazi—hacienda—guru— Little effort was made to protect the purity of the English language, and consequently it’s rich with meanings.

[DanZ]

I find these to be interesting examples of English word change.

Gay, - In the 50’s it used to mean someone happy. Today it is means ????

Queer - In U.K. English, again back a few years ago, it meant odd, strange, not normal. Today what does this mean ???

There are other less “striking” - not offensive bastardizations of English. Is this good, is this bad ??? History marches on

[matginzac]

Our present form of English is greatly influenced by French, interestingly enough, and results from the Battle of Hastings and the Norman invasion of England.
While the standard complaint is that English is hard to learn because of spelling and pronunciation, having to worry about gender in all aspects of a language makes all the Romance languages more difficult to learn than English, IMO.
But it IS a constant reaffirmation that as long as you need to worry about a French word being masculine or feminine, “transgender words” will have a hard time being accepted!

[matginzac]

It was Billy Joel and Levis jeans.

[SampleMan]

Queer was aptly used to describe men and women that were odd. Rich people were eccentric or dandy, everyone else was queer. It was so often used to describe homosexuals that it became the primary meaning of the word. When it became a noun, it also became offensive.

I'm guessing that gay was a euphemism invented in the inner bowls of NYC trust-fund snobbery, to describe socially critical homosexuals.

[Gay State Conservative]

Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? Because the Germans prefer to march in the shade.