Foreign Words and Phrases

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Intentionally Butchering Someone Else's Language Is

Fine everyone does it

31%

[ 7 ]

Ok sometimes- explain when

36%

[ 8 ]

Never really ok

31%

[ 7 ]

Total Votes : 22

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 12:07 am

sequoia wrote:

So is Jeeves a valit or a valay?

A butler.

LiLIsraeli

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 12:16 am

When I was in Israel, I hated how native Hebrew-speakers would say "clipsim" or "chipsom" or "la'asot babyseeter." Things like that drove me crazy!!

"Clips" is already plural!! And "babysitter" is a person, not an activity!

I must confess that when conversing in Hebrew, I did use those colloquialisms in order to be understood, but it hurt me inside every time.

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 12:17 am

chanamiriam wrote:

I love the word egregious.

The breakfast menu on that TV show that used to be cohosted by Kathie Lee Gifford?

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 12:27 am

morah wrote:

My dad is French, so I speak French fluently and when I use French words that have been adopted in English, I sound French when I say them and everyone teases me for it. Occasionally someone gets insulted about it, thinking I'm being snooty and Frenchy, but what can I do, I grew up speaking French so I really can't bring myself to butcher it just because it's coming up in an otherwise English sentence.

At least you come by it honestly. What drives me round the bend is when Americans who really speak only American try to pronounce foreign phrases in the foreign accent, to sound sophisticated and not to be funny.IOW, the very thing ppl think you're doing. It comes off ...yeah, snooty. and phony. I used to work with a young lady who would do that. Were we to imagine she went to a Swiss finishing school, summered in Italy and did college in France? I happen to know she finished a Bronx high school, summered in Far Rockaway, and did college in Harlem.

Tamiri

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 1:45 am

chanamiriam wrote:

I hear that all breakfast cereals in israel are generically referred to as 'cornflakes'

Incorrect. They are called "dganim" (grains).

HindaRochel

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 2:11 am

Tamiri wrote:

HindaRochel wrote:

[ Or "front rare axle" or something like that (I don't own a car) .

You mean "beck ecks kidmi" = frontal rear axle

Probably!!! It so made me laugh. But this is how language grows...I think it is good. English grew because it kept incorporating other languages into it. I see it as a sign of health. But if the words/phrases retain the parameters and patterns set by the originating language, it remains a foreign word.

ora_43

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 2:49 am

sarahd wrote:

But people seem to use walla as a synonym for voila, where they are clearly not trying to say "by G-d".

Walla is used to mean things like, "really?" or "ohhh, now I get it." So it can sound kind of similar.

Eg. "No, we can't do it Tuesday, we have a test that day." "Walla, you're right."
or "Rochel got a perfect score on the test." "Walla, good for her."

On mispronunciations - Israelis also mispronounce a lot of their own words, at least according to my ulpan teacher. For example, "shmonaesrei" should really be said "shmonehesrei."

I think it's the same everywhere, words get mixed up. In America "literally" is now used just like "really," that is, often used just for emphasis. And people say "have your cake and eat it too," which is the reverse of the original expression and if you think about it doesn't make much sense.

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 8:44 am

There is something much worse than people innocently or ignorantly butchering foreign expressions, and that is authors in one language inserting snippets of dialogue in another language without translating. Excuse me, Ms./Mr. Author, this is a book written in English. Why do you assume that your readers understand Russian/Latin/French/Spanish/German/Flemish/Elvish/Klingon? Didn't your mother teach you it's rude to speak in front of others in a language they don't understand?

WriterMom

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 8:50 am

louche wrote:

sequoia wrote:

So is Jeeves a valit or a valay?

A butler.

Oh, he took great exception to that when in America!

(Adore the BBC series, never read the books. Are they as good?)

HindaRochel

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 8:53 am

In the past educated people knew the phrases, whether Latin or French (usually one of those two I think) and these would be the people reading the books. I also find it very annoying. Some books do now offer translations, but a few older editions that I run across refuse to help me out. If it isn't Shabbat there is google translate!

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:01 am

WriterMom wrote:

louche wrote:

sequoia wrote:

So is Jeeves a valit or a valay?

A butler.

Oh, he took great exception to that when in America!

(Adore the BBC series, never read the books. Are they as good?)

Donno. Adore the books, never saw the BBC series.

Raisin

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:07 am

louche wrote:

WriterMom wrote:

louche wrote:

sequoia wrote:

So is Jeeves a valit or a valay?

A butler.

Oh, he took great exception to that when in America!

(Adore the BBC series, never read the books. Are they as good?)

Donno. Adore the books, never saw the BBC series.

you can download the books for free from projectgutenberg.

WriterMom

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:12 am

Good enough for me, I'll give 'em a try on my Kindle!

Is Jeeves very sophisticatedly snarky in the books? (In the series, when Bertie gets monogrammed hankies, which Jeeves deems tacky, he suggests that perhaps someone broke into the house and wrote on his clothing.)

sequoia

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:15 am

I saw the series first, years ago, and loved it.

Then I read the books. They are so much better! The delicious Wodehousian humor can hardly be captured on a TV show.

Start with "Thank you, Jeeves" or "The Code of the Woosters".

louche

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:21 am

HindaRochel wrote:

I'm not talking about classics. I'm talking about a modern novel in which our CIA operative overhears a Russian couple muttering cryptically in line at the airport, or the carnival fortune-teller moans in Hungarian at what is revealed in the crystal ball, or a Florentine lounge lizard tries to chat up our heroine on a visit to the Uffizi. I have even suffered such linguistic indignities in a regency romance, I kid you not. An apparently witty exchange in Greek and Latin between our heroine (her father treated her like the son he never had) and our dashing hero ( a classical scholar when he wasn't being an athlete, ladies' man, and aristocrat-about-town.)

GoodEnough

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 9:28 am

chanamiriam wrote:

I hear that all breakfast cereals in israel are generically referred to as 'cornflakes'

My Israeli husband used to do that - til I stopped him Smile

someoneoutthere

Fri, Nov 26 2010, 11:47 am

English is almost entirely composed of foreign words (to English) that eventually got anglicized and incorporated. I learned enough French, Hebrew, Yiddish/German, to be able to see how English is just a jumble of all the other languages in the world totally mutilated.
When I was in Israel we had a Hebrew language teacher that would sometimes translate words he could not remember in English at the moment into Portuguese (he'd spent time as a shaliach in Brazil) and a Brazilian classmate would help him in the effort of finding the English word. Only, I often found it just as fast because "sophisticated" English has a lot of mutilated words from various Romance languages so hearing it pronounced in Portuguese I'd be able to mutilate it myself Smile

That, and way too many French as a (second/third/fourth??) language classes in elementary and part of high school.

Fatigued anyone? My relatives in Montreal converse in a French I understand better than my relatives from France. Quebecois is already a mutilated rendition of French.
How about raison d'etre? Genre? cinco de mayo? Spend time in the southwestern US and then complain about Spanish with a southern twang...There are lots of sophisticated and not so sophisticated English words that clearly ripped off of other languages. For all intents and purposes, they're English when used in an English sentence, so pronounced as English and mean whatever the English language has ascribed to it. In English that is.
A guy in Israel told me someone who was half passed out on a fast day was "totaloss" and I did not understand him till he explained in Hebrew that "total loss" is used to mean "a writeoff". Or somehow a flat tire is a "puncher". We don't quite speak like that. But in Israel that's what it means and that's cool with me. Though I do permit myself to laugh at the funny ways I've heard words pronounced. From all languages. I find language evolution to be fascinating but if someone is going to tell me that it's fah-tee-gay and not fateeged, sorry. In English I'm fateeged. In French, je suis tres fatiguée. No offense to the native French speakers.

HindaRochel

Sat, Nov 27 2010, 10:44 am

louche wrote:

HindaRochel wrote:

Oh well that is just obnoxious!!! Yeah, modern writers should translate and not try for such snobbery.

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