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Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

theguardian.com

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Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#301

Post by eleveriven »

wil421 wrote: post #240
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English being an amalgamated language and thus uniquely flexible is part of its power. We have options in style choices many languages formally don’t permit, e.g. when to italicise or, if quoting, whether to “exclude punctuation”, or “include it.” (As well as comma use.) As a fellow French speaker, I think these are strengths other languages could gain from. Couriel or email (or e-mail)? Speaker’s choice. Same for po…

Is English just badly pronounced French?[1] I wish English would’ve adopted conjugation and other patterns the Romance languages use. I doubt it would’ve fit correctly. But it would be better than having 1,000s of badly pronounced French words in the language. [1] https://www.barrons.com/amp/news/english-just-badly-pronounc...

While English certainly has thousands of words that came from French, it is far from being a "badly pronounced" version of French.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#302

Post by saghm »

crazygringo wrote: post #264

The article doesn't mention it, but am I right in assuming this basically comes from McDonald's? There are a lot of places around the world that copy the "'s" where it doesn't exist natively, but only for restaurant names or similar -- like "Bob's" is the McDonald's clone in Brazil [1]. I'm mostly curious whether "Rosi's" and "Kati's" in the article are seen by Germans as intentionally trying to look "foreign", rathe…

> The article doesn't mention it, but am I right in assuming this basically comes from McDonald's? There are a lot of places around the world that copy the "'s" where it doesn't exist natively, but only for restaurant names or similar -- like "Bob's" is the McDonald's clone in Brazil [1].

For whatever reason, it drives me crazy when I hear people refer to Pizzeria Uno as "Uno's". I've had conversations about it multiple times with different people in my family. There's no one named "Uno", it's a number! I try not to be a prescriptivist but for whatever reason this bothers me to an irrational degree, and I can't understand why nobody else notices.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#303

Post by renewiltord »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #299
eleveriven wrote: post #293

For many, language is a key part of cultural identity, and changes in grammar can feel like a threat to that identity.

But we should all bow down to the american cultural imperialism because why not

Whether you should or not is irrelevant because you will. No imperialism deigns to ask.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#304

Post by SSJPython »

oersted wrote: post #281
wolframhempel wrote: post #220

I feel that most people instinctively assume that some institution, e.g. the government or the dictionary publishers are the authority on what constitutes "correct language". It's important to emphasize that language (included spelling) is something that develops organically and that the role of these institutions is just to capture the status quo. At least that should be the case in free societies. Language is power…

This has historically been the philosophy of English linguists, but for many languages (Spanish, French, German…) there is a central institution that does indeed decide what is officially correct. Their decisions are taken seriously and are intentionally propagated anywhere where language is used in a somewhat official context (not just in public institutions). True they adapt the standard over time following common…

> This has historically been the philosophy of English linguists, but for many languages (Spanish, French, German…) there is a central institution that does indeed decide what is officially correct. Their decisions are taken seriously and intentionally propagated anywhere where language is used in a somewhat official context (not just in public institutions).

This sounds very similar to the common law vs. civil law traditions as well. I wonder if there's a connection between linguistics and legal systems.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#305

Post by nobody9999 »

schroeding wrote: post #261
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, dictionaries and governments are just writing down what's already happening in the language. In a way language is one of the only truly democratic institutions. We all vote for new words and new pronunciations by using them or not using them. The collective action of all these choices is the language.

Eh, I wouldn't agree with that. In Germany, we had multiple top-down orthographic reforms in the past (e.g. Rechtschreibreform 1996, had many many significant, brand-new changes to make spelling and speaking more consistent) which were pretty forced, i.e. was not organic at all. I'm not saying it was bad, I like the current state of the German language - but it was not organic or democratic. Germanys equivalent to Th…

>And there is no true way to "vote with your feet" if you get punished for violating the official orthography.

Ich hat das nicht verstanden. Ich kann mit meinem fusse wahlen.

Wie konnte ich fur schlecte Deutsch bestraft werden? Ich wohne nicht in Deutschland.

Und ja, meinem Deutsch ist sehr schlecht. Das stimmt. Kommen sie damit klar.

Edit: Fixed (without really improving) my terrible german.

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#306

Post by meling »

> lists “Eva’s Blumenladen” (Eva’s Flower Shop) and “Peter’s Taverne” (Peter’s Tavern) as usable alternatives, though “Eva’s Brille” (“Eva’s glasses”) remains incorrect.

I didn’t understand why Eva’s Brille is incorrect. Anyone understand the difference? Is it only allowed for commercial entities?

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#308

Post by ars »

rob74 wrote: post #168

> The new edition of the Council for German Orthography’s style guide [...] lists “Eva’s Blumenladen” (Eva’s Flower Shop) and “Peter’s Taverne” (Peter’s Tavern) as usable alternatives, though “Eva’s Brille” (“Eva’s glasses”) remains incorrect. So they didn't actually simplify it - they made it more complicated? But my single largest pet peeve with the original reform is that they "outlawed" the use of the English plu…

Can you explain what's different about Glasses vs Tavern, where it's allowed in one and not the other?

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#309

Post by ashishb »

There are only two approaches to languages that the world will follow. One is the Chinese approach, where you create a big geographical entity that speaks your language. The other is the European Laissez-faire approach of respecting a plethora of languages with few speakers which is worthless for most foreigners to learn, all of your mini languages die and get replaced by English. https://ashishb.net/short-stories/prague-airport/

Re: Germans decry influence of English as 'idiot's apostrophe' gets approval

#310

Post by seszett »

martijnarts wrote: post #171
onlypassingthru wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of English is that it is controlled by the speakers and not by some pompous authority. It's even flexible enough to allow for regional differences, which allows my fellow Americans and I to spell words correctly like color and theater .

For what it's worth, French is also controlled by speakers. The pompous authority is just lagging behind.

There is not authority for french, it's a myth.

The Académie has no authority whatsoever, it's little more than a club for writers. The Education Ministry has authority for school programs and what is accepted in French language classes, but only in France. It only ever allows new uses, never forbids previously allowed things.

The OQLF (and French language Ministry) has a broader authority within Québec, but only for Québec.

The Ministry of Culture has some authority within the Brussels-Wallonia federation but it's quite limited.

No idea what it's like in Switzerland.

But there is no global authority for the French language (unlike German or Dutch for example). The language evolves by consensus.

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