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"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more na
by Synaesthesia 10y ago
"But the famous ‘insularity’ and ‘xenophobia’ of the English is far stronger in the working class than in the bourgeoisie. In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every Englishman of working-class origin considers it effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly."
From George Orwell - England Your England http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye
- omegaham 10y agoReminds me of the Hornblower books, where Hornblower has to pronounce French cities and landmarks with the mangled British pronunciation rather than saying them in the French. The books repeatedly make a point of him doing it, along with Hornblower's annoyance at having to do so.
- justincormack 10y agoThere are a whole set of naval names for places, like Leghorn. They are falling into disuse now though.
- mc32 10y agoWhat's worse, that or not speaking a perfect Frankish language of when in the land of Franks? At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well.
- seszett 10y agoDepends on which land of Franks you're talking about, but in most places the Franks eventually adopted the local language of the place they ruled (which is why French is a Romance language and not a Germanic one).
- oblio 10y ago> At least the English tolerate all kinds of foreign mangling pretty well. That's because they mangle their own language awfully enough. I'm not a native English speaker but I've heard quite a few native Englishmen and their accents are horrible. Received Pronunciation is obviously nice to hear and quite clear, but those local accents... oh my! I'm not saying that my accent is any better, but at least I try to make my sounds be as close as possible to the actual letters used in the word! :)
- Accacin 10y agoSome of those "horrible" accents are some of the oldest accents in the UK.
- oblio 10y agoAnd as we all know, backwards compatibility is a bitch!
- philbarr 10y agoGan canny woer Geordie!
- FuckOffNeemo 10y agoWhy aye man! Ya dinae what yet torkin aboot!
- BjoernKW 10y agoThere's no letter-to-sound correspondence in English. English probably - at least compared with other European language - is one of the most irregular languages in terms of pronunciation: http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/english1.html http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/english1.html This is simply due to the language having been heavily influenced by a host of other - quite different - languages over the centuries, Old Norse and French in particular. There's also the interesting fact that as the first human language in history English is spoken by more non-native speakers than native speakers. Some linguists say we might very well see some sort of International English that's highly influenced by foreign accents. In fact there already is such a variety although it's only used by a rather small group of people: The kind of English used by the European Union, its officials and bureaucrats. EU English is littered with bureaucratic expressions, loan words and false friends (particularly from French).
- pif 10y agoI suppose you've been to Paris :-) I was there, too, and I got the same impression as you. What a surprise when I later discovered how warmly welcomed you'll be anywhere else in France!
- mc32 10y agoVery true, once you get out of the island of France region, and specially the south, people are very welcoming.
- timeout 10y agoThat's brexit right there.
- dharma1 10y agocombined with this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-wages-drop-10-tuc-greece-recession-financial-crisis-brexit-a7157681.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-wages-dro...
- nkrisc 10y agoI love listening to the English butcher (assimilate?) loanwords. Sure, other English-speaking peoples do as well, but the English in particular do it with gusto. Even McDonalds gets 'filet' mostly right.
- arprocter 10y agoIt's kind of strange how the US pronounces French words more correctly than us Brits - I assume it's partly due to our historical disdain for those on the other side of The Channel. In the UK it's called a 'fillit of fish' and a car with 2 doors (coupe) is called a 'koop-ay' as if there was an accent on the e
- colanderman 10y agoThere is an accent on the "e": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coup%C3%A9#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coup%C3%A9#English
- arprocter 10y agoHah, I guess the accent got lost crossing the Atlantic then
- duaneb 10y agoThe accent is a reflection of the British pronunciation; note the original French never had an accent either. It is absolutely incorrect in America and implies a different pronunciation than anywhere but Britain. EDIT: I am wrong.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> The accent is a reflection of the British pronunciation; note the original French never had an accent either. The French (which is referenced in that wiktionary article) does, in fact, have the same accent.
- colanderman 10y ago
- cafard 10y agoI guess that I could demonstrate my American superiority by going to the Capitol cafeteria to order some "freedom fries"--or has that term been quietly dropped?
- CaptSpify 10y agoReminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Taylor#First_visit_to_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Taylor#First_visit_to_C... Basically, missionaries were having a hard time converting Chinese to Christianity, as nobody would listen to them. He started wearing their clothes, and suddenly people started listening to him.