english words that dont sound english

[princealbertofb]

I agree about the word 'Ombudsman', that is such a strange word. Doesn't sound English at all. ... Still, thanks for the croissants, bourguinon, etc!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croissant See the "origin stories" section.
Tulloni, you've actually got the Austrian pastrymakers to thank for the Croissants. They were what we called Viennoiseries (Danish pastry) (haha, see where that went?), patisseries from Vienna, Austria, that the French adopted and maybe perfected... that were made to comemorate the fact that the Turkish troops did not manage to invade Vienna in centuries gone by. The crescent being the symbol of Islam.

[princealbertofb]

Not Dutch but Norse : An indigenous Swedish, Danish and Norwegian term, Ombudsman is etymologically rooted in the Old Norse word umboðsmaðr, essentially meaning "representative" (with the word umbud/ombud meaning proxy, attorney, that is someone who is authorized to act for someone else, a meaning it still has in the Scandinavian languages). The first preserved use is in Sweden. In the Danish Law of Jutland from 1241, the term is umbozman and means a royal civil servant in a hundred. From 1552, it is also used in the other Scandinavian languages such as the both Icelandic and Faroese umboðsmaður, the Norwegian ombudsmann and the Danish ombudsmand. The Swedish speaking minority in Finland uses the Swedish terminology.

[Ekwarph]

I don't understand, except "real" french words like "croissant", "cliché", etc. (which I don't think they consitute 30% of English) why not saying that those 30% come from Latin ?

[partis]

By the way, about that:
Most sources say a little less then one-third, like 30%, of the English language has been derived from French.

I know and i hope you understand it was a joke.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

English is what it is due to several factors.

French is a heavy influence of english words and spelling. The whole i after e except after c rule which then has several hundred contradictions is because at one point English was considered a primitive, backward language and the French being cultured and civilized and shit came over to teach the English how to speak and write. Recall your history, 1066 some minor invasion took place in the UK Will Konkoror came in and with his Frenchy ways instituted massive changes, one being introducing a new way to spell konkoror = Conqueror.

During the Medieval period english was setting its foundations, unfortunately the popular calligraphy of the era lead to strange looking letters which with all of the fine lines and thick lines lead to questionable interpretation of letters. O and U are often confused due to simple ink smudges and a few hundred years later the grammar and spelling police decided to interpret and try to bring the english language under one spelling format - back in the day people spelled willy nilly - or as they wanted to. Much like we see today on the internet...

So we get o sounding like o or u at odd times all because no one could make out early calligraphic works.

Latin is the main base for many english words. Yet one more Invasion to the English Isles set back oh around the time Christ was Born. As such during the same age of enlightenment as the Spelling Nazis were getting down to consolidating English, they decided to drag in extra letters to educate the masses that words like debt (originally spelled dette)connect to the Latin debere - of course that worked only for a few centuries, most people neither no or care that Latin is the root of many english words - in fact that fact just annoys them when it comes to spelling.


The Use of "c" was to break up the calligraphy which was a hard font to write when not smudged. Thus c was incorporated here and there to breakup and distinguish different words apart. Science as an example of too many c's used to make it look pretty in calligraphy I guess.

Calligraphy

Looks pretty don't it - but what the hell is this word? Think about it.

Is this: animal or annnal or aiiuiiai?

Solution? stop using "u" for some words, like "some," "love," and "come," tack on a silent e to indicate that o is really a u. And use "c" to separate the "k" from letters it could be easily confused with, which led to spellings such as "lick" and "flick".

Then we have misspelling done on purpose because english uses a lot of same sounding words that mean different things: Son and Sun - I call you Son because you are so bright? Maybe...

They're, there, their - the confusion is to make it clear what we are saying in the written form - but apparently such clarity is not needed in the spoken form - why that is? IDK


cwen - Queen. the Cw use hails from locals of the English Island - I think wales, or some exotic place of that. C was predominately a helping letter - cw, ch. In come the Normans and they decided to change it to Q.

Sadly English is predominately a foreign language. most of the words in common everyday english are brought to the primitive peoples of England from outside sources who came in and decided that the natural languages of the people of those islands would be better of regulated to the dung heap of history.

Chaucer is a riot to read:
Youre two eyn will sle me sodenly
I may the beaute of them not sustene,
So wendeth it thorowout my herte kene.

However this is as close to what real english is supposed to look like.

[princealbertofb]

I don't understand, except "real" french words like "croissant", "cliché", etc. (which I don't think they consitute 30% of English) why not saying that those 30% come from Latin ?

Some of the words in questions come from Latin via French, but some probably just come from French. Not sure cliché comes from the Latin...

[Ekwarph]

Some of the words in questions come from Latin via French, but some probably just come from French. Not sure cliché comes from the Latin...

Yes, that's what I said
I said except those obvious words that "crudely" come from French...Statistically in the sentence I'm writing now, there would be about 15 words which come from French, although none is exactly French like "cliché" or "croissant" (ok here it is lol)

[princealbertofb]

Yes, that's what I said
I said except those obvious words that "crudely" come from French...Statistically in the sentence I'm writing now, there would be about 15 words which come from French, although none is exactly French like "cliché" or "croissant" (ok here it is lol)

Lol, statistically, sentence, French, exactly, cliché, croissant... that's 6 words in that sentence...

[Ekwarph]

Lol, statistically, sentence, French, exactly, cliché, croissant... that's 6 words in that sentence...

Statistics come from Latin "statisticum", sentence and French, ok, and exact comes from latin "exactus", no ?

[MisterTinkles]

"Congregate" - sounds like a German illegal street maneuver or something.