Bits. No pieces.

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Why do we have pieces when bits will do? I mean the English language is littered with double ups. Bits AND pieces. What is the difference between a bit and a piece?

Between a spick and a speck?

Between a bit and a bob?

Between a this and a that?

Between an odd and an end?

Between a flotsam and a jetsam? Well, I sort of know that one but it has become a double act anyway.

I wont go on, you get the idea.

And we are not the only ones: the French gave us bric-a-brac.
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Dinner for one. Some dinner. Some one.

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I recently had the rare treat of being home alone. The boys were out at various parties, Margaret was off at a class reunion from last year.

I was feeling reflective and had a formal dinner in honour of my Dad, who died in September.

The last time I saw him, he gave me a wine 'for a special occasion'. Did he know how bad things were for him? Maybe. The doctors said 'remission' but they are on the outside looking in. Things look different from the other direction.

So I cooked a steak and had some of his wine.

He would have approved.

A handwritten note from my Dad that lives on my study wall.
He wasn't religious but loved wisdom, wherever he found it.
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And that means...what?

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This is part of an advertisement for a sparkling apple juice in the papers yesterday.

Perhaps it is having 20-ish years of food testing that makes me respond to these things badly but look at the sticker on the apple.

I have no trouble with 'no added sugar' or 'no preservatives'.

But "100% sparkling juice from concentrate"?

What's that supposed to mean?

It sounds almost virtuous, doesn't it?

What it really means is that some cheap apple concentrate (probably imported from a third world country) has been reconstituted to the minimum strength possible and artificially carbonated to boot.

Bah! Put a lid on it.
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A harlot of a language!

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Yesterday I was writing about the UK councils who want to remove Latin from the language used in council documents because it is difficult for migrants learning English. I would have thought that such people don't look at the origin of the words but just assume that they are English but I do take Peter's point (in comments to the last post) that you adjust the vocabulary to fit your audience. That should be done across the board, not by banning one segment of the language.

That brings me to the whole fascinating area of where the words in English originate from. They come from everywhere. Surely this is welcoming to migrants? A feeling of home, perhaps. A brief dip into some of the hodge podge of the words in use in English comes up with the following linguistic thefts:

Afrikaans (apartheid, commando, slim, trek),

Amoy - A Sino-Tibetan language (ketchup, tea)

Arabic (alcohol, calibre, monsoon, zero)

Avestan - An extinct language spoken in ancient Persia (bronze, magic, paradise)

Basque - A language spoken in Northern Spain and South West France that, remarkably, is unrelated to any other language in the world (anchovy, bizarre, jingo)

Bengali (bungalow, dinghy)

Carib (barbecue, cannibal, maize)

Czech (pistol, polka, robot)

Danish (fog, kidnap, ombudsman)

Dutch (boss, cookie, lottery, yacht)

Gaelic (bard, golf, slogan, whisky)

Gaulish (ambassador, carpenter, lawn, Paris)

Hungarian (coach, goulash, paprika, sabre)

Italian (bankrupt, fascist, opera, umbrella)

Japanese (judo, karate, soy, tycoon)

Marshallese (bikini)

Maya (cigar, shark)

Nahuatl (chocolate, guacamole, Mexico, tomato)

Nepali (Gurkha, panda)

Norse (berserk, husband, reindeer, window)

Phoenician (Bible, gypsum, purple)

Portuguese (breeze, flamingo, marmalade, molasses)

Russian (bistro, cosmonaut, mammoth, vodka)

Sanskrit (candy, orange, sugar)

Serbian (vampire)

Spanish (canyon, guitar, patio, tornado)

Swedish (boulder, mink, smorgasbord, Tungsten)

Tahitian (tattoo)

Taino - A language spoken in the Caribbean (guava, hammock, hurricane, potato)

Tamil (anaconda, curry, mango, pariah)

Tongan (taboo)

Tupi –A language spoken in the Amazon (cashew, maraca, piranha, tapioca)

Ukrainian (balaclava, Cossack)

For more, see here.

Nunc ambrosia!

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Local authorities in the UK have ordered employees to stop using Latin words and phrases on documents written for public use.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, the ban has annoyed classical scholars who say it is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing".

Salisbury Council has asked staff not to use ad hoc, ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), while Fife Council has banned ad hoc as well as ex officio.

Bournemouth Council has listed 19 expressions that it no longer allows. They include bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum, etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata, quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.

The council noted to staff: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult."

- stv.tv local news.

Nunc ambrosia in turbini est!*

Now, I can understand some of them but so many are common usage anyway: eg: eg, ie, nb, etc, & via.

And what of words derived from Latin?

A brief list includes:
advert, agenda, agitator, album, alias, alibi, animal, apex, aquarium, Aquarius, arbiter, arena, Aries, August, autumn, axis, Britain, calendar, Cancer, captor, cardinal, circus, creator, creditor, curator, curriculum, cursor, Cyprus, data, December, discus, doctor, educator, equinox, February, focus, formula, forum, France, fungus, Gemini, genius, Germany, Greece, habitat, igneous, ignoramus, inch, index, inertia, inferior, innuendo, interior, joke, July, June, junior, Jupiter, Leo, liberator, Libra, London, March, Mars, matrix, maximum, May, medium, memorandum, Mercury, merit, mile, minimum, miracle, momentum, monitor, moratorium, motor, nebula, nectar, Neptune, nimbus, November, nubile, nucleus, obese, occult, October, omen, onus, orbit, pantomime, parent, pastor, peninsula, penis, picture, pirate, Pisces, premium, prohibit, pronoun, quadrant, quarantine, quota, rabid, radius, recipe, referendum, refrigerate, reign, relegate, religion, republic, respect, rostrum, rota, rude, Sagittarius, saliva, salubrious, sandal, sartorial, satellite, scale, segment, senior, September, series, silence, sinister, Spain, species, spectator, spectrum, stadium, stet, stimulus, street, study, stupid, suburb, superior, table, tacit, tandem, tavern, terminus, torpedo, transport, triangle, trident, ulterior, uniform, vacuum, vagina, valour, vehicle, ventriloquist, Venus, versus, veto, via, victim, victor, villa, violator, Virgo, virile.

Should these go too?

*Now the rice pudding's really hit the fan.
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