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old hand
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old hand
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Maybe this is just because I'm still in school, I doubt it, but I've always thought of Monday-Friday and Saturday-Sunday as two different sections of the week. That's probably why one is called the week and the other the weekend. Friday for me always feels like the end of the week and the weekend is somewhat of a latent period until the beginning of a new week on Monday. Not that I don't do anything on the weekend, but it's a different routine.
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newbie
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newbie
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Fortnight is not in common use in my part of Canada, although it is not unknown. It's probably heard more on the west coast where brits are concentrated (guaranteed fortnight after fortnight of steady rain there).
Carpe whatever
Carpe whatever
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Solrep hedged: Carpe whatever
Well, for this post perhaps it should have been:
carpe dies quatuordecim (Latin for "fortnight" ....)
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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A thing that always struck me as funny is the French expression corresponding to "a fortnight", namely quinze jours, literally, 15 days. There is also une quinzaine but no quatorzaine.
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Carpal Tunnel
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wsieber noted: French expression corresponding to "a fortnight", namely quinze jours, literally, 15 days
... and just when have the French conformed on any other topic? They were probably just miffed that everyone had stolen the idea of fourteen days = fortnight.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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... and just when have the French conformed on any other topic? Very true – le President will be marching in step, even if the rest of NATO is somehow not hearing the same drum  But the new version of the official dictionary, just issued and yours for FF450, does at least now accept hamburgers , jogging , le flash-back , le jackpot , and les girls as legally permissible parts of the recognised French language. And this is no joke – the country that, after all, gave the English-speaking world the phrase bureaucracy , has a ‘police’ based within the Ministry of Culture. This force uses the dictionary to attempt to enforce France’s strict laws against the use of foreign terms within schools, all official documentation, advertising and public notices. The difference such a narrowly prescriptive methodology makes is quite illuminating. New termes argotiques only just admitted to official recognition include such incandescent buzz words as ‘dope’ and ‘joint’! Is this not reminiscent of King Canute getting his feet wet (even if 40 years after the tide rolled in)?  The history and rationale (sounds like a good French word) of the French Academy’s approach is roughly this: “Au secours: la défense de la langue française! Jugeant que la concurrence de l’anglais, même dans la vie courante, représentait une réelle menace pour le français et que les importations anglo-américaines dans notre lexique devenaient trop massives, les autorités gouvernementales ont été amenées, depuis une trentaine d’années, à compléter le dispositif traditionnel de régulation de la langue. À partir de 1972, des commissions ministérielles de terminologie et de néologie sont constituées. Elles s’emploient à indiquer, parfois même à créer, les termes français qu’il convient d’employer pour éviter tel ou tel mot étranger, ou encore pour désigner une nouvelle notion ou un nouvel objet encore innommés. Ces termes s’imposent alors à l’administration. On ne dit plus tie-break mais jeu décisif, baladeur remplace walkman, logiciel se substitue à software, etc….” If you want to see more, chercher la toile, mes amis! http://www.academie-francaise.fr/dictionnaire/index.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
Is this not reminiscent of King Canute getting his feet wet?
Has anybody else ever read the following favourable interpretation of Knut's actions? I read somewhere that the whole trip to the seaside was in order to teach his sycophantic courtiers a lesson - stop sucking up so hard, I am but a man, that sort of thing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Mav said, inter alia: And this is no joke – the country that, after all, gave the English-speaking world the phrase bureaucracy , has a ‘police’ based within the Ministry of Culture.
ah...l'academie francaise (hope the spelling is right). I remember hearing a Frenchman with a good sense of humour and grasp of English pillorying them and their attempts to enforce linguistic "purity". He was at pains to point out that if you removed all the foreign influences from the language, not only would there be no language, but there wouldn't even be anything to drink!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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the very first time i heard of king canute was when a scholar was debunking the common myth, and explaining the that canute was wise and etc.., It was on TV, definately, i think a BBC show that was re-broadcast here... maybe the story of english thing they did? it was well over 10 years ago.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Has anybody else ever read the following favourable interpretation of Knut's actions? ...the whole trip to
the seaside was in order to teach his sycophantic courtiers a lesson - stop sucking up so hard...
The way I got it stuck in my tiny little brain is that that is just what we learned in primary school. But then I remember getting shot down by a teacher for claiming that a kookaburra was a bird!
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