What are your pet peeves re English usage?

well if I knew the Latvian for very many thanks kind sir

i would say it

Smile

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Glad to oblige. It's Liels paldies.

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well Liels paldies for the Liels paldies

and the fish

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Actually, soles and flounders, but mackerels, herrings etc as well, from the Baltic Sea taste really much better than those from the North Sea.

Dover soles, btw, do come out of the North Sea, rather than from the English Channel - having acquired their name from the time when they were landed at Dover for delivery to the capital. (Surprisingly, the French are prepared to use the name, even when the fish come from the Bay of Biscay, while the Irish, having changed most English names, call them black soles. [But you'll find «sole de la mer du Nord» on French menus as well.])

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It pains me to admit this, but I really don't know what the Latvian word for 'sole' is. What is it in German, Walter? The Latvian might be close as a number of such German loan-words came into the Latvian language during the centuries when the nobility was all German and the peasants all local Latvians.

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Scholle - or Seezunge (the last is the better, more expensive kind).

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et ça coûte "schollement" combien?

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Francis wrote:

et ça coûte "schollement" combien?

Le menu solandais:

Quote:

Scholle "Finkenwerder Art" mit Speckwürfel und Kartoffelsalat
13,60
Schollenfilets gebraten, auf Blattspinat mit feiner Krebssauce und Salzkartoffeln
14,80
Scholle"Büsumer Art" mit Krabben und Salzkartoffeln
15,10
Seezunge "Müllerin Art" mit Salzkartoffeln und gem. Salat
31,70

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Thanks, Walter, but,no, that doesn't help. Must be a local word that I've forgotten. I have a Latvian-to-German dictionary but it doesn't have a German-to-Latvian feature (published in Westfalen, btw, back in the late 1940s when a large number of Latvian refugees were still in displaced persons camps in Germany). I'll have to do some research on my own. Smile

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Andy - I found the most approaching latvian word for sole : "svinīgs" - solennel Very Happy

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Wonderful, Francis! Yes, svinígs means solemn or ceremonious.

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why is this thread on use of English making me hungry?

Well done Francis, where did you fish that one up?

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Use of Latvian, you mean.

What is the correct English for a 'morue' Francis?

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Codfish, I think. ('Kabeljau' in German.)

Was on the plate here today.

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Then what is 'haddock' in French, or German come to that?

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Haddock is ('Schellfisch' in German) aegelfin or églefin or .... haddock.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

Your point is well taken. Grammar is important only if you wish to sound highly educated or -- and this is important -- in writing. I also do Latvian-to-English translation for the US government from time to time. Nobody takes you seriously if you make egregious grammatical errors in writing. But as for simple person-to-person communication, sometimes an ungrammatical sentence or expression comes across better than "proper" grammar. In fact, many time you will sound more like a native speaker if you intentionally misuse the language just like the natives do!

Merry A,

You're making the common but egregious error of equating the style and form used for writing as grammatical and the forms used for speech as ungrammatical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both are fully grammatical.

Notice you how get would upset whether that was spoken or written.

The reason is, native speakers of English know the rules of language and these rules help them deploy grammatical language, whether it is written or spoken.

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Hooray, chichan's back!

Don't agree with your first para. You seem to have redefined "ungrammatical" in an unhelpful and perverse way.
If one form (the written form, say) is grammatical and the other is different, is it not more useful to describe it as ungrammatical but permissible in the circumstances?

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McTag wrote:

Hooray, chichan's back!

Don't agree with your first para. You seem to have redefined "ungrammatical" in an unhelpful and perverse way.
If one form (the written form, say) is grammatical and the other is different, is it not more useful to describe it as ungrammatical but permissible in the circumstances?

Thanks for the warm reception. Embarrassed

Actually, McTag, I've described it as it is in reality. Since the foundation of all languages resides in the spoken form, it's not at all helpful to force this apples versus oranges comparison. It has long led to folks expressing things about language that simply aren't true.

Each realm of language has its own set of rules. What aspect of writing shall we define all language by; academic writing, fiction, newspaper and magazine or some other form?

Just as the rules for these registers differ, so do the rules for speaking.

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Well, yes. These are deep and turbid waters. Viewed like that, "rules for speaking" becomes something of a contradiction. I think everyone uses differing modes of speech in differing circumstances.

It has been said too, that an Englishman only has to open his mouth to speak, for some other Englishman to despise him.

Just the same, if we are to have grammar for the language, and a "grammatical" way of speaking, then I think you must allow of the existence of the ungrammatical, however conventional, handy, brief, comprehensible etc it may be.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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