Linguistics

It’s a fabulous thing, but the English language can be awfully confusing. So many rules, so many broken rules, so many words that have multiple meanings, so many different ways to pronounce the same letter groups. I don’t know how Sean Bean bears it. I can’t speak for other languages obviously as I don’t speak any other languages.

I understand more French than any other other language but only if it’s written. I used to be able to say sentences in French but couldn’t understand the replies, useless. When the French currency was francs I had to take pen and paper for shop assistants to write with when I asked for the price of things. I could count to 100 but most things cost multiple hundreds or thousands and that was beyond me.

A French mum and teenage son were walking behind me in the park the other morning. Not in the same sentence but in the same conversation they mentioned both croissants and entrepreneurs. Two words that I understood, I felt like a proper linguist. This did of course lead to me trying to imagine what the conversational link was, if indeed there was a link. I concluded quite quickly that of course there must be many business minded French pastry makers.

I have a handful of Spanish phrases…I have lost and I would like, when combined with explanatory arm waving or drawings, have proved super useful. It’s lucky that I’m good at charades and Pictionary and don’t embarrass easily. I know how to say that; there’s a lot of…. and, there’s not a lot of…. this hasn’t been very helpful at all.

My lack of linguistic skills used to be most embarrassing in Italy, I always thought I looked non specifically foreign, but in Italy I definitely looked Italian and before people realised that I was English they thought I was really stupid or exceptionally rude.

All of this rambling about words/language has been brought on by a sign on a works van that we saw earlier. The business to whom the van belongs specialises in fencing, garden fencing. Cornflake laughed because he immediately thought of sword fighting. Embarrassingly the first thing that came to my mind was the receiving and disposing of stolen goods.

I watch too much tv obviously.