You could have won a Tarax competition with that effort!

Re: Akhtar, an actual cricket issue.

It is sad that he won’t be playing, ridiculously talented cricketer with apparently limited mental capacity, his career has certainly been one of the more colourful in world sports let alone cricket. I can’t recall another player having to miss games due to liposuction.

http://www.justbookreviews.net/Judith_Gorham2.html

“…….An important subplot of the adventure is the way a ‘correct’ way of speaking emerges. During the 17th century thousands of words were absorbed and created to cope with the expanding world. These new, usually elaborate classically based terms were called ‘inkhorn words’ by those who felt English must be defended from immigrant Latin and Greek. On the other side were those who saw a “necessary augmentation”. The debate sounds familiar. We might even support those Renaissance defenders of the language, until we learn that the words they wanted rid of included ‘specimen’, ‘pancreas’ and ‘skeleton’. It is also worth noting that many of the imported or fabricated words did in fact disappear of their own accord, and today we manage well without ‘obtestate’ (to bear witness) and ‘nidulate’ (to build a nest)!

Ideas of ‘fixing’ a correct language persisted through the 18th century. Anxiety about the state of the language was expressed by both the usual busybodies and more distinguished thinkers. The confidence that had “gobbled up (words) raw and whole” had given way to a need to fix them so that literature would not be lost to future generations. An academy was proposed so that grammar rules could be properly formulated and standards set. Swift, a key player in the movement, particularly disliked clipped words -‘pos’ for positive, contracted verbs – ‘disturb’d’ ‘rebuk’d’, and fashionable words – ‘sham’, ‘banter’ ‘bubble’. There was even a move to prohibit French phrases where English ones would do just as well.

Another idea explored in the book is that of new words providing new ideas or trains of thought, or clarifying current ones. Incredibly, the words for ‘crime’, ‘envy’ and ‘glory’ did not exist until the first English translation of the Bible; an even later translation introduced ‘beauty’. Imagine The Sun’s editorial without these! Later French imports of ‘romance’ ‘chivalry’ and ‘honour’ brought more new concepts. The pairings created by the first influx of Norman French words (start/commence, ask/demand, wish/desire) quickly become subtle distinctions. Bragg comments “commence carries a touch more cultural clout though start has the better sound and meaning to it for my ear…..It is as if the foreign elaborations, the wonderful artifice of the new and the inserted words only really strike fire when they hit the flint of the old”.

Thanks for the heads up on this wonderful article and its inciteful commentry

Bravo!

Now, an ancient Greek might take offence at my use of the term “hoi polloi”.

Socrates – “Art, why could you not use a term like “the masses”, “the many”, or even “the rabble”. Can’t you see its use was inappropriate. It is pronouced – EE POLI – in Greek nothing like this OI! POLLOY! nonsense that this English Tribe uses. Its just not Greek Cricket”

Aristotle – “Leave Art alone Socrates, have you no sense of humour. People would think you are one of those humourless Barbarians that we found North of Macedonia”

So I have to say that I side with Freud on this one. I’m not against borrowings from foreign languages per se (oops more Latin!) and I’m not against their use for humorous effect. But context is everything and this wasn’t really it I’m afraid. You can’t simply take any word or phrase from a foreign language and drop it into an English sentence — especially when there is a perfectly good English equivalent such as, um, “genital warts” — and expect everyone to think you’re a funny fellow. While I can see that your intent in using a German expression was for humorous effect I didn’t actually find it funny in this context.

Beim nächsten Mal klappt’s besser?

And I think we have nothing to fear from Feigwarzen, which translates as “cowardly warts” on Babelfish (not that Babelfish should be regarded as omniscient on these matters).

And no, die Genitalen Warzen, Feigwarzen, and Genitalwarzen will never make it into English, unless you want genital warts to sound even worse, that’s the point.
Freud it has been good that language has been a focus on a sports website with an article on cricket and STDs!.
You are obviously a passionate and knowledgeable man in literary manners which is great but why the tinge of arrogance and the complete lack of a sense of humour?

Presto has been in the English dictionary for a long time, “die Genitalen Warzen” will never be adopted into English – there is a clear difference between the two.

I merely echoed the sentiments of many German’s, the constant swapping of words is annoying and pointless, I believe there are some native German speakers on The Roar and I would hesitate a guess that they would be of the same view as me.

As for Andrew’s use of German, well it was quite simply annoying, ridiculous (there you go MyGeneration, I can spell it) and totally pointless, they’re called Genital Warts, the words exist in English so what place do a few German words, for a medical condition, have in an otherwise English article?

The Irony of it all……….

Oh defender of the German language.

Further, I believe both Genitalwarzen and Feigwarzen can be used but there is some difference between the two terms I believe (that comes from Google as I’ve not been to the clinic), I simply can’t tell you what that is.

German may sound abrasive but it is quite a deep language, there is some excellent poetry and literature in German same as French (which is fantastic for HipHop) and when used correctly, German can be very beautiful – unlike English which is just extremely plain.

English is now expansive enough that we don’t need to borrow words, there are now that many words in German for example that don’t have a direct/correct translation in English, “gemütlich” is probably the most famous but “kiffen” is pretty well known too.

I’m surprised people don’t use these words rather than über which is easily translated.

And thanks for pointing out my spelling mistake – twice. Much appreciated.