Quote:
Originally Posted by Basilissa
4. Now, let's try a novel approach - instead of joining words from different languages, let's go with just one source language. In Greek, "lint" is translated as ξαντό [xantó], giving us this word:
xantófobo, xantófoba
Here, I have given you three four reasonable choices which actually follow the rules of word making in Mexican. I really like the last one, it has a really nice ring to it.
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That is a truly euphonious coinage, Sister, though I'm afraid our SJW friend would mutilate it in his efforts to be politically correct. He -- or at least
some of his brethren siblingren -- would insist on
xantófobx,
xantófobo/a or
xantófob@, with
endless dispute over the "correct" pronunciation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joanna Lytton-Vasey
Numbers 3 and 4 are obviously elegant and erudite solutions, Sister Basilissa. However, I do have a question. I was assuming that Dr Pendergast was referring to navel lint. Do you happen to know whether Latin and/or Greek had a word for this specific substance?
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I did indeed have navel lint in mind, but tomorrow that could just as easily change to a lint ball clogging a washing machine drain or a ball of fluff on a woollen jumper, and the American language and its 1.5 billion speakers (if we include English, the dialect of American spoken in the British Commonwealth) would be expected to accommodate.
I hate to say it, but we really are
turning Japanese. For over a millennium, American personal pronouns have been a
closed class, with no new words being allowed into this category. But over the last few decades umpteen gender-neutral pronouns have invented and are being used. Soon I fear we will be like the Japs, with pronouns coming into and dropping out of vogue at such a rate that one can never remember whether to refer to oneself as
boku or
washi.
We learn in the Bible that God invented the languages of the world. He confused the tongues at Babel to keep civilization from "advancing" or "progressing." I would rather have God controlling my language (and thoughts) than these SJW types.
Gen 11:1-9
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.