Bonsai trees cannot be minted in specie.

[Brian Van Fleet]

You want the USA to do like the French? Create a "Ministry of Pure Language"? A department of Homeland Security that corrects people's grammar and vocabulary. That is awful "liberal" for a ''Bamma Boy" like yourself.

Just teasing. It is true that there is or was an "official" breaucracy attempting to limit foreign words from creeping into French language, like "internet", "google", "non-smoking", and other english abominations.

Just teasing @AlainK

I am a classical liberal, by its proper definition.
Funny how terms get hijacked.

 

[penumbra]

In most ways I am a bleeding heart liberal if defined today. The borders between conservative and liberal have changed so much during my lifetime that they have just about flip flopped. That is about as much about politics as you you get out of me. Religion, even less.

 

[Gabler]

The borders between conservative and liberal have changed

There's not presently a political party in the USA that I can really identify with. The two biggest are more interested in maintaining their hegemony than they are in promoting competent candidates, and the smaller parties tend to be too far removed from reality in their proposed policies.

 

[penumbra]

There's not presently a political party in the USA that I can really identify with. The two biggest are more interested in maintaining their hegemony than they are in promoting competent candidates, and the smaller parties tend to be too far removed from reality in their proposed policies.

Well said.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

So the funny thing about etymology is that way back when I was in high school, I took four years of Latin. And then I learned that many Latin words came from the earlier Greek. And that there is a difference between Romance languages and Romanish languages. And that English and the name "England" came from the Engles... who were neither the conquerers nor inheritors of what we now know as England when the Western Roman empire collapsed in the 5th century.

Suffice it to say that even the so-called "Latin names" that we frequently use in our botanical names are not Latin. "Pyra" is Greek for fire like in "pyracanthus" though canthus is Latin for thorn. Thus the English "firethorn". However many common names do not stick as closely to the Latin (or scientific) names.

I find it interesting... in a fun, historical way. Does a rose by any other name smell just as sweet? As long as we know what we're talking about... who cares what words are coming out of our mouths?

 

[leatherback]

Thus the English "firethorn". However many common names do not stick as closely to the Latin (or scientific) names.

Question becomes.. Was it called firethorn before the greek and latin started messing with the name, or was it the other way around!

 

[leatherback]

There's not presently a political party in the USA that I can really identify with. The two biggest are more interested in maintaining their hegemony than they are in promoting competent candidates, and the smaller parties tend to be too far removed from reality in their proposed policies.

Sounds like a great opportunity for a new party !?
But be carefull.. Avoid the Netherlands' result.. A record number of 89 parties registered for this years elections..

 

[BonjourBonsai]

They say that the only rule in English is that there is always an exception. I like that because it recognizes how fundamentally tricky communication can be.

 

[AlainK]

Just teasing @AlainK

We're not the most extreme, the Office Québecquois de la Langue Française goes even further.

Like any language, there are many local, regional, national varieties of the French language. But it's true that I don't like using an English word when there's already a French word for a notion, like "ma life" as some rappers say instead of "ma vie". Or when it's ambiguous like when people say "je supporte cette politique" (meaning for them "I support this policy") whereas "je soutiens cette politique", which should be used instead means about the contrary. I can't bear that : je ne le supporte pas.

PS : "Mal nommer les choses, c'est ajouter à la misère du monde" Albert Camus

 

[Bonsai Nut]

They say that the only rule in English is that there is always an exception. I like that because it recognizes how fundamentally tricky communication can be.

Also, it is not at all uncommon for people to use sarcasm and say exactly the opposite of what they mean. "Oh that's just great" never means that it is, in fact, great

 

[BonjourBonsai]

Also, it is not at all uncommon for people to use sarcasm and say exactly the opposite of what they mean. "Oh that's just great" never means that it is, in fact, great

"yeah, right"

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

"yeah, right"

The case of two positives making a negative

 

[AlainK]

Also, it is not at all uncommon for people to use sarcasm and say exactly the opposite of what they mean.

Those people are oxy-morons!