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One of the great strengths of the English language is that it happily incorporates words from almost every other language on the planet (e.g. no one bothers to make up words which means 'ombudsman' or 'quisling' - we just adopt the Swedish and Norwegian words which already mean these things). This means
that an English speaker has a fantastic number of words to choose from (about 400,000 - about five times as many as French) and also that the rich lineage of these words can be used as a tool to communicate more effectively.
So, to start with this idea is for a word processor which makes explicit the source (etymology) of the words you use. Rather as MS-Word does spelling and grammar checking on your document it should also do a level of analysis of the etymology of the words you are using. It might show, for example, each word highlighted in a different colour depending on whether it has Latin or Anglo-Saxon roots and then subtly different colours for French, Spanish, Portugese, Old French, German, Old High German, etc. You'll be able to see at a glance whether you're using mostly Latin words (which tend to be longer, sound more refined and have more nuanced meanings) or Anglo-Saxon words (which are shorter, and sound more direct and truthful (a trick used by speechwriters, particularly Churchill)).
A more sophisticated version of this would use a clever matrix of etymology-ranked synonyms to enable you to adjust a slider to make (by automated replacement of words with their synonyms) your text more related to one language and less to another. This could be useful when writing English text to be read by someone with a non-English first language - e.g. a Spaniard may find it easier to read English which uses a high proportion of Latin, Spanish Mexican and Portugese-derived words. You could also use this tool to boost the representation of languages
under-represented in English, just for fun (so "beer tent" would become "alcohol kiosk", both words with Arabic roots).
Million Words Hoax
http://languagelog....penn.edu/nll/?p=972
[calum, Sep 10 2009]
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Annotation:
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//then subtly different colours for French, Spanish, Portugese, Old French, German, Old High German, etc.// |
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... and gibberish, of course. |
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Very {<astute, french><savvy,
spanish><clever, dutch/low german>}.
Bun! |
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Wish I'd thought of this one! [+] |
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Actually Miriam-Webster suggests the "-ship" suffix derives from the Old English "scieppan", meaning "to shape", but your annotation reminded me of words like "television" which are an invented mixture of Ancient Greek ("tele" - "across", "at a distance", etc.) and Latin ("visere" - "to see") and which would be interesting to try and represent in this markup. |
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Great idea. Especially the slider tool. Bunnage. [+] |
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This is a really lovely idea. |
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This is really a worthy idea. I would pay for this. |
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Excellent writer's tool, would have been very useful with my last book. [+] |
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//I wonder how many vocal sounds (vocabulary) can be traced back to out of africa times.// |
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The vocabulary that can be traced back as far as proto-Indo-European runs to a few thousand words (exact numbers disputable). No-one really knows where that was spoken, but probably not in Africa, and no-one really knows what it sounded like (go on, somebody sing me a primitive labio-velar). Any attempts to connect that vocabulary with African language-groups such as Cushitic are, as I understand it, highly speculative (verging on half-baked?). |
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I was going to think this up in the next couple of weeks. (+)
Maybe a fortnight. |
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As an English copywriter working in the Middle East, using words of Arabic origin would help me a great deal. |
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+ what everyone said, in other languages, too.
a bun by any other name is still a bun |
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holy smarty pants I like it! |
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Look at all those buns. You still got it,
[hippo]. This product could be offered
by the Oxford english dictionary, since
they have all that etymology thing
sorted out. |
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For automatic replacements, warning box: |
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"beer tent => alcohol kiosk" Connotation has changed from 'party' to 'commercial establishment' and Tone has changed from 'colloquial' to 'politically correct'. Continue with changes? |
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[bungston] Yes - or with a fast enough
web connection it may be possible to
scrape the etymology information from an
online dictionary as you type. |
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That would be a simple way to use the online OED. You need a license to see it anyway. This software could be part of the deluxe license. |
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This program might also be able to convert all words in a given text to their oldest known spelling. You would have to have a font with those old english characters. |
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Also, I think you mean "Mexican Spanish." |
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Oops - a missed comma. I meant "Spanish, Mexican" (last para of idea). |
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Mmmm, yes, I can envisage a sort of fancy visual web structure branching out from a selected word showing geographically and historically related words. |
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//There are now more than 1,000,000 words in the English language.//
Well that's what people say but I reckon that most of 'em are just the same letters mixed up in a different order. |
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//world linguistics orchard// Brilliant extension of the tree paradigm, I keep finding myself resorting to describing nodular things in terms of leaves, twigs, branches etc - never once have I considered expanding out into the Orchard. |
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[later] Further thinking about this suggests usage of "Forests" and "Jungles" (I think Forests were experimented with in Microsoft Active Directory, but I can't be sure) But I do like the suggestion of the fruit-bearing, husbanded, ordered collection of trees that Orchard suggests. A Jungle might then describe a superposition of multiple Orchards, occupying the same space, potentially (eugh) interacting with one another. However, there is the unpleasant notion of Monkeys which, in terms of strict taxonomies is never a good idea. Forests are a little tamer, but may still, instead of containing monkeys, harbour Outlaws, and you're back to the same issue - No, Orchards is ideal. |
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The difference in Etymology between English English
and American English (how come my chrome spell
checking stopped working? and how do I get it
back?! ok -- Settings / Language / English / Enable
Spell Checking checkbox) is that in English English
you take a
photograph and then enlarge it, while in American
English you shoot a picture and then blow it up. |
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Brilliant! (Latin / Italian / French) [+] |
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