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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 963
old hand
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old hand
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 963 |
A real example He gots no (whatever)? I don't know the history of gots. I don't either, but I've seen it develop more or less spontaneously in young children, and it makes sense: got is perceived as the infinitive of a verb that approximates the meaning of have: "Got a minute?" the song "I Got Rhythm" is not past tense, as in "Yesterday I got rhythm," but present, as in "I have rhythm," so the conjugation runs I got, you got, he or she gots…Peter
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Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,706
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,706 |
I agree Peter...I hear kids use 'gots' a lot and I guess they unlearn the use of it as they grow up, because us adults tell them its not correct.
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 2
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 2 |
My old German professor would spit on the floor when he said a French word and then mutter "Bastard Latin!"
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
My old German professor would spit on the floor when he said a French word and then mutter "Bastard Latin!"
Lovely habit spitting on floors. I'm glad I left the barnyard behind when I got to university. Anyway, French is neither worse nor better than Latin or German.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,916 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,916 Likes: 2 |
If only they'd get rid of the filthy habit in Baseball.
Decades ago I taught both Latin and French, loved them both.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Lovely habit spitting on floors.
I forget where I read it but it was an account of an English ship's captain in Japan back when Japan started letting gaijin back in after a hundred years or so of forbidding them from entering. He said that he was amazed how clean the Japanese kept their houses. They were so clean that he almost didn't feel like spitting on the floor.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
gaijin
NOUN:
pl. gaijin
A non-Japanese person.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETYMOLOGY:
Japanese : gai, outside, foreign (from Middle Chinese wajh) + jin, person ; see jinriksha
AHD. Thank you.
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
gaijin
I was actively studying Japanese at my last job (for a Japanese telecom company), and so, I would try to practice with the owner and Japanese-speaking customers at my local sushi restaurant. One day, I was asking the owner if some guest who had come in and were sitting in one of the tatami dining rooms were Japanese (nihonjin) or not. That led to my in a sentence referring to myself as a gaijin. My host corrected me. He said technically, since we were in the States, he was the gaijin (foreigner) and I was an amerikajin (American). It sounded too formal to me, so we settled on henna hakujin (weird white guy). The five days I spent in Japan I heard the word gaijin more than any other word.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
weird white guy [snort]
I heard the word gaijin more than any other word. Ah, yes--closely related to gringo, I believe!
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 1,075
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 1,075 |
I really do dislike the idea that our "language is changing fo the worse."
Language changes. Sometimes it brings in "dross": more often it brings in "gold."
We have to live with it, innit?
I'm immortal until proven otherwise
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