More French in English than You Think

Clark   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 22:42 GMT
I was just looking up words on an online dictionary, and I came across an interesting French word. But first, what do you sometimes say when you smell something horrible? "Pew" maybe?

Well, my best bet would be this word or expression came from the French word, "puer" which means "to stink."
wassabi   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 23:30 GMT
there are definatly a lot of words that have been taken from french
Clark   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 23:34 GMT
About 60% of the English vocabulary derives from French and Latin (30% French/30% Latin). SO if you take out the Norman invasion, there would still be about 30% of the English vocabulary derived from Latin origins.
Boy   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 23:35 GMT
Clark,

Enough is Enough. No more disgrace for any language. It was shocking to see an interview of an ordinary American at foxnews channel, when he was blaming to the cause of breakdown in the united states to "Canadian French". No more hatred. The life is so short here, learn to live with love and peace. Respect others and try to be respected by others. That's what I just know and that's what I want to know and that's it.
wassabi   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 23:39 GMT
er, thanks american-who-blamed-canadianfrench-on-foxnews, sure makes us feel warm and cudly in side
Clark   Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 23:53 GMT
Some of the most simple words you can think of came from the French language.

sure = sur
language = langage
line = ligne
And many more.

I am sure some of you are probably annoyed with my "Frenchness," but for me, French is really the only language I know enough about to talk about the intricacies(sp) of the grammar and vocabulary to compare them to other languages and English.
Boy   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 00:56 GMT
Clark,

No way, Jose. Who told you this. The french thing has been too much recently right on this forum. Some trouble-makers used to call them "smelly French" or "Cowards" and stuff like that. Look back at your first post, you mentioned that word that had the meaning of "smell something horrible". Any other user like me can misinterpret the whole thing. They used to see this sort of thing regularly.

On a personal note, I love French people, esp: Paris, I wish oneday I could visit there and see the whole city. It lives in my heart along with New york because these were the first foreign cities that I have ever heard as a child. I used to read about them in my course books. The statue of liberty thing was so intriguing to me, I used to stare at it in my book, for hours and hours. I always used to wish that someday I could touch it with my own hands.
Clark   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 01:10 GMT
Well I certainly did not mean to indicate that the French are smelly. I think my track-record of defending the French should show this.

Where are you from, Boy?
Boy   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 01:37 GMT
I'm from Pakistan. I'm 16 years old boy, have wasted many crucial years of my life without learning the language of English. I come here just for fixing some English sentences, that's to say, just for English practice. My father enforced me to do this otherwise I was wandering around on the streets of Pakistan along with my goody-goody homes. I study for the sake of study.
Even my father opens the page of books for me. I'm quite changed now. Do you remember my statue of liberty thing? I used to do it the whole time in my class and lift my head when a teacher used to wrap up the class by saying like this : Now, that's clear. Don't be confused by this sentence. He used to know this word only and used to conduct the whole class in the native language. By the way, learning English is too painful through grammar rules. Today I learn a rule, after the gap of two days, I forget it again. Oh, man, conditional sentences are pain in my ass.

I find this forum very intriguing. No password and no user id, and no advertisemnts, and just easy to access, in short, dude, no headaches.
By the way, where do you rank my English?
Wingyellow   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 02:18 GMT
Even I do not have any problem understand this post.
I believe that all English words which have three or more syllables(sp) are borrowed from French or other languages. Because almost all basic English words contain only one syllable:
I, you, he, she, go, come, do, make, pass, get,take, (one to ten, except seven,which has a schwa), love, thank, but, so, see, think, hear, (almost all body parts). We can use 1 syllable word alone for our daily lives.
CLark   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 02:47 GMT
YOur English is pretty good. There are some grammar items you need to work on like vocabulary and verb agreement with subjects, but you write well.

As for the simple English words having one syllable, I would agree with this for the most part, but there are compound words that can be two or three syllables long as well.
Simon   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 05:43 GMT
I love the word "street". It's a Latin borrowing that preceded the arrival of what would become English in England.
Clark   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 06:54 GMT
Does anyone know of any French forums that one does not have to sign up for? For example, any forums set up like Antimoon where you just click on "Discussion Forum" and boom, you can write and read everything?

Or does anyone know of any websites that offer free webpage setup? I have no real means of paying for anything, so free is a word that I like to hear. I have heard of "homestead.com" having free access to creating your own webpage.

Thanks a lot.
wingyellow   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 07:04 GMT
Yahoo is free.
sima   Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 09:04 GMT
Clark there is this "forum de discussion" in French :

http://www.mabraze.com/mabraze/
I've not tried it myself.
Bonne chance !