Mailing List lml@lancaironline.net Message #21934
From: <Sky2high@aol.com>
Sender: Marvin Kaye <marv@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: [LML] Re: American English - The last vibrant language
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:31:04 -0500
To: <lml@lancaironline.net>
In a message dated 12/16/2003 9:43:49 AM Central Standard Time, marv@lancaironline.net writes:
I suppose there is a long time ago you have learnt French language,so write it
in English,your sentence in French is non understandable for a French speaking
people. Sorry....
Alain,
 
Alas, I flunked both German and French in college. The dean wouldn't accept FORTRAN so I made arrangements with my Spanish professor to satify the language requirement by the extensive reading of South American authors and my writing analyses of the literature.  I am tone deaf in part of the vocal range and have a difficult time even understanding American English - Of course, my wife thinks I am totally deaf when she talks to me.
 
Some could possibly miss the humor in my French expression - especially when they actually speak French.  Most traditional languages, whether they be German, French, Italian, etc.  tend to not create new words for new objects.  Instead, they frequently link a handful of descriptive words together - sometimes a very cumbersome result.  However, when I looked up "search engine" in the online French and German translation dictionaries, they both came back with "search engine."  Perhaps it is more common today to adopt the English language term. ( Gary, I was hoping for "search motor.") 
 
The offending line was:
 
Perhaps in French: Lingerie avec le seine a voyez dessous le collage (software for the net to view beneath the layers).
 
Lingerie = softwear (a textile industry term) = sounds like software (computer program).
seine = net = internet, the place where search engines run.
voyez dessous = see underneath?
collage = pasted up collection of odds and ends?
 
My humor, if any, is never tested. I just blurt it out and hope for the best.  I doesn't always work even though I might be LOL.
 
Scott Krueger
Sky2high@aol.com
II-P N92EX IO320 Aurora, IL (KARR)

"...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." D. Rumsfeld
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