>>>>> "PC" == Piers Cawley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
PC> Remember, Britain hasn't been invaded or conquered since 1066. A
PC> remarkably large number of 'foreign' words have entered English
PC> since then. The rules seems to be "If it's a word for a concept we
PC> don't actually have a word for, and it's not a complete and utter
PC> bastard to pronounce/spell then nick it."
shouldn't that last part be, don't change its spelling but definitely
change its pronunciation? :) and a large part of the english language
growth was not due to the unconquerable britain but the reverse, all the
places that england conquered (or tried to). and the US is a large part
of that with its gung ho culture and acceptance of new anything. so many
modern english words (especially in the sciences and engineering)
were/are just made up in america from various sources (acronyms,
latin/greek roots, whims, etc.). english is so broad because of its
history of borrowing and allowances for change. you don't get
vocabularies of .5-1M words without a license to steal!
uri
--
Uri Guttman --------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------- http://www.sysarch.com
SYStems ARCHitecture and Stem Development ------ http://www.stemsystems.com
Learn Advanced Object Oriented Perl from Damian Conway - Boston, July 10-11
Class and Registration info: http://www.sysarch.com/perl/OOP_class.html
