On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 6:27:52 PM UTC+5:30, Robert Kern wrote: > On 2013-11-27 08:16, Antoon Pardon wrote: > > Op 26-11-13 22:42, Tim Delaney schreef: > >> On 27 November 2013 03:57, Antoon Pardon wrote: > >> So I can now ask my questions in dutch and expect others to try and > >> understand me instead of me asking them in english? Or can I use > >> literal translations of dutch idioms even if I suspect that such > >> a literal translation could be misunderstood and even be insulting? > >> 1. No, because this is stated to be an English-speaking list/newsgroup. > >> It just doesn't specify what dialect of English. > > Well so much for this group being an international group with only one > > language allowed. > > However that second sentence doesn't make much sense to me. Modern > > languages contain a subset that is called the standard language.
> Linguists would disagree. Linguists disagree a lot amongst themselves: Early 20th century there was Fowler and his followers -- unabashedly laying down the law on what is right and not. Then there were his opponents (French school I think, not sure what they were called -- poststructuralists maybe??) who said language was defined by usage and not the other way. Until someone (Fowlerite?) pointed out that those anti-Fowlerites seemingly objectively described all the dialects but they themselves stuck to pristine Queen's English. So like in society, all dialects are equal and some are more equal! -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
