LET'S ROLL!!!
Good morning, everyone!
In less enlightened times, those 14 singing "How great WE art" would have their toungues cut out for lying.
Here is a bit of trivia on the mixing of French and English. We use the French words (pork, beef, mutton) to refer to the cooked meat because the nobles were the ones who consumed it. We use the Anglo-Saxon words (pig, cow, sheep), to refer to the livestock, because the peasants raised the animals.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to post an obscure trivia item that I have had rattling around in my head for decades! LOL!
There is a thread up from someone in DC they claim there has been a small explosion near the White House......you heard anything?
Bork says that the judicial nominee deal is a deal loss for the GOP.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410969/posts
The democrats refuse to appoint Congressmen and Senators to the president's Medicaid Commission.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410972/posts
Another great opening. Thank you, Chair.
I was going to comment on the Norman/French influence on English, but then I found this website: A History of the English Language
Here's an excerpt that's relevant to your comments:
The influence of the Normans can be illustrated by looking at two words, beef and cow. Beef, commonly eaten by the aristocracy, derives from the Anglo-Norman, while the Anglo-Saxon commoners, who tended the cattle, retained the Germanic cow. Many legal terms, such as indict, jury, and verdict have Anglo-Norman roots because the Normans ran the courts. This split, where words commonly used by the aristocracy have Romantic roots and words frequently used by the Anglo-Saxon commoners have Germanic roots, can be seen in many instances.And check this out: The Lord's Prayer in Old English (ca 1000)Sometimes French words replaced Old English words; crime replaced firen and uncle replaced eam. Other times, French and Old English components combined to form a new word, as the French gentle and the Germanic man formed gentleman. Other times, two different words with roughly the same meaning survive into modern English. Thus we have the Germanic doom and the French judgment, or wish and desire.
A lot of people refer to King James English and Shakespeare as examples of Old English, but that's early Modern English. Old English predates Shakespeare by well over 600 years.
OK, this geeky linguist is done for the day. Don't miss the fun at the thread about the Tennessee lawmakers who got cuffed. Harold Ford announces his plans to seek Frist's senate seat and the next day his goofy uncle gets arrested for bribery AND extortion. LOL!
Chair, Today Rush said that the prison who complained about the Koran abuse recanted his testimony. It's a NewsMax article but seems to comply with what Rush read today from a reliable source.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411353/posts