[Torie]

Frog language dominates so many legal terms in English, because the Norman invaders who made impure the gleam of the pure English language in the Churchillian eye (his famous speech against Hitler, about we will defend the hills, etc, was deliberately composed of Frog free words, except for the last word, "surrender" as in we will never "surrender"). That is because the Normans ran the traps when it came to the law when in power, before they merged into the irresistible English landscape.

We in the Guild even have the Parisian French "guarantee," and the Norman French "guaranty." Most American lawyers don't know why we have two seemingly redundant Frog words for the same concept, but I know. I know, because this kind of trivia interests me - these gleaming little word toys of history, or etymology, or whatever the fancy term for it is.

[lentulusgracchus]

the Norman invaders who made impure the gleam....

Were Danes, who accompanied Rollie the Ganger in the ninth century when he carved off a bit of Gallia omnis, whose Latin was really going downhill anyway.

Like the Danes who occupied the English Danelaw, and gave us "drag" next to "dray", "draught", and "draw", "skipper" next to "shipper" and "ship", "clog" next to "cloy", and several other cognate pairs.

Ergo, no Frenchman ever ruled England, because the Conqueror and his seed weren't French, howbeit they may have worn the sprig of the broom and called it by a French name.