Bothersome things

[Mvmarcz]

In my senior year art class I got in an argument with the girls at my table because I used the word erasure. As in, I made an erasure on the paper. They thought I was mispronouncing the word "eraser." I told them no, in fact, erasure is a word. They told me I was making it up, and when I went to ask the teacher about it they told me to calm down.

You use an eraser, you erase something, you've made an erasure. Not really that crazy of a concept. And I didn't really appreciate being told to calm down when... you know... I was being calm the whole time.

That's a bothersome thing.

I love making erasures

[McDuffies]

Oh noesssss, foreign influences in language. I hate how English people say "sweater", when it was the SPANISH who named the sueter. I mean how ugly and convoluted is it for an English speaker to try and cough that word out. And like French, Italian and Spanish can go suck hard ones for stealing from Latin. And the Brits should just have kept calling them eyeren instead of EGGS, I mean, EGGS, pleaaaaase.

That is different. Language does mutate over time, but you don't get to force language to mutate the way you want just because you think that foreign words sound cooler.

[KWill]

I find this particularly funny given that English is a germanic language

Yeah, but English doesn't use prefixes for verbs the way German does...

[Tellurider]

Oh noesssss, foreign influences in language. I hate how English people say "sweater", when it was the SPANISH who named the sueter. I mean how ugly and convoluted is it for an English speaker to try and cough that word out. And like French, Italian and Spanish can go suck hard ones for stealing from Latin. And the Brits should just have kept calling them eyeren instead of EGGS, I mean, EGGS, pleaaaaase.

That is different. Language does mutate over time, but you don't get to force language to mutate the way you want just because you think that foreign words sound cooler.

Desu ne? KAWAII NEKO-CHAN! baka!

[Killbert-Robby]

Oh noesssss, foreign influences in language. I hate how English people say "sweater", when it was the SPANISH who named the sueter. I mean how ugly and convoluted is it for an English speaker to try and cough that word out. And like French, Italian and Spanish can go suck hard ones for stealing from Latin. And the Brits should just have kept calling them eyeren instead of EGGS, I mean, EGGS, pleaaaaase.

That is different. Language does mutate over time, but you don't get to force language to mutate the way you want just because you think that foreign words sound cooler.

But taking words directly from Italian is A-OK. Or Greek. Hell, language mutation owes a lot to people just taking words from other languages Maltese which is a cluster fuck of Arameic, French and Italian comes to mind. I just can't help but think this is specifically because the language in question is English, because there are zero complaints about saying things like ciao, or tiganj, or jeftin

[Spaceprincess]

In my senior year art class I got in an argument with the girls at my table because I used the word erasure. As in, I made an erasure on the paper. They thought I was mispronouncing the word "eraser." I told them no, in fact, erasure is a word. They told me I was making it up, and when I went to ask the teacher about it they told me to calm down.

You use an eraser, you erase something, you've made an erasure. Not really that crazy of a concept. And I didn't really appreciate being told to calm down when... you know... I was being calm the whole time.

That's a bothersome thing.

I love making erasures

Erasure is a kick ass rock duo! "Little respect" and "always" are two of their best jams!

[McDuffies]

Oh noesssss, foreign influences in language. I hate how English people say "sweater", when it was the SPANISH who named the sueter. I mean how ugly and convoluted is it for an English speaker to try and cough that word out. And like French, Italian and Spanish can go suck hard ones for stealing from Latin. And the Brits should just have kept calling them eyeren instead of EGGS, I mean, EGGS, pleaaaaase.

That is different. Language does mutate over time, but you don't get to force language to mutate the way you want just because you think that foreign words sound cooler.

But taking words directly from Italian is A-OK. Or Greek. Hell, language mutation owes a lot to people just taking words from other languages Maltese which is a cluster fuck of Arameic, French and Italian comes to mind. I just can't help but think this is specifically because the language in question is English, because there are zero complaints about saying things like ciao, or tiganj, or jeftin

Again: we are not talking about same things.

Languages influence each other and mix. This happens because people move and nations mix, because one nation enslaves another, because people go to universities in other countries, even because technology like fax machine and computer, or drinks like cappucino gets imported, and the name of the product gets imported too. That is what you are talking about.

On the other hand, when someone uses a foreign word which is not in a vocabulary of a language he's currently speaking, is not commonly used in this language - that is what I'm talking about. This is the case when listeners have to reckognize this word not based on their knowledge of their own language, but have to rely on on knowledge of the foreign language.

Examples:
Words like ciao, tiganj or jeftin are all words that belong to Serbian vocabulary. Sure enough they are all words that are of foreign descendance, but have been used for so long that they're accepted as bona fide serbian words. Tiganj and jeftin, I believe, come from turkish language and originate from 500 years spent under Otoman empire. Ciao - since it originates from Venetian, it was probably accepted through Dalmatia, and then spreaded on, so it probably came to Serbia as more of a Dalmatian than Italian word.

Words like file, fax, computer, etc, have been accepted in serbian relatively recently to fill the void in technological terminology. In croatian language, they are trying to prevent massive importing of words by finding out domestic analogues (like cvrsnik for hard-disc from cvrst - hard), but in Serbian that's not usual.

And then there's the third kind: like when people in serbian fashion industry use words like "personality" or "accessoire" even though these words are completely foreign to serbian language. Similarly, people in marketing like to use words like "advertising" because plain old "reklamiranje" sounds too plain for them. Journalists sometimes use full phrases like "by the way" in attempt to appear modern.

So if I said "tiganj" or "cappucino" in a common conversation with someone who doesn't speak english, turkish or italian, this person would know what I'm talking based solely on his knowledge of serbian vocabulary. If I used "file" or "hard-disc" in a conversation with reasonably computer-savvy person, he wouldn't need to know english to know the meaning of these terms.
If I used the term "advertising" or "by the way" in a conversation with a person who doesn't speak english, chances are he wouldn't know what that means. In fact, that's pretty much the whole point of using the word - it's foreign so it's exotic, modern, it supposedly paints you as an educated person that you can so casually drop in foreign words. It's akin to name-dropping in parties to show off how you know important people.

And also: No, it's not because the language in question is english.
I would have the same issue with it if foreign words were being taken in the manner I described from Italian, modern Greek, Arameic or French. However, they are not. Words are taken almost exclusively from English because most of people know english, because most of people watch movies and listen to music in english.

In fact there was a time before world wars when French and German influences were much stronger than english here, and back then words were being snatched from these languages that was an object of much criticism and ridicule. And guess what, vast majority of these words didn't stick, they didn't become part of serbian vocabulary just because wannabe-trendy high class used them. You can only find out that they were ever used by reading papers or novels from that time.

That was a bit lengthy post, but I wanted to be absolutely clear. I started feeling like we're running in circles.