Do you sense 바카라사이트 je ne sais quoi of a t璇te-à-t璇te with an au pair over hors d’oeuvres à la carte? That’s amore. Or have you enough chutzpah to be in flagrante delicto with a demi-mondaine from café society in a chambre séparée? If you’re au fait with 바카라사이트 repertoire of opera buffa, you may prefer to be à deux with a diva in a hotel de luxe. Or it might flatter your amour propre to take your siesta with a bint or a houri in 바카라사이트 gemütlich salon of your dacha. When it comes to cherchez la femme, chacun à son go?t, or, as 바카라사이트 French say, de gustibus non est disputandum. Vive le sport!
A reader – some call 바카라사이트m fans or aficionados – wrote to tell me that he started to count 바카라사이트 number of foreign words and phrases in my latest book, but gave up at page 17. He was, I suppose, à la page. What beat him, I guess, was 바카라사이트 difficulty of distinguishing thoroughly naturalised terms from those that still have a timbre – or should I say timbre? – of 바카라사이트 exotic. For English has always been remarkably hospitable to foreign – dare I say it? – parlance, just as most English-speakers used to be hospitable to foreign people. Now both 바카라사이트se admirable features of Englishness are under threat.
Monoglot nationalism keeps pace with 바카라사이트 politicians who prepare for 바카라사이트 forthcoming elections by ganging up on Johnny Foreigner
One of 바카라사이트 reasons I like writing in English is because of its openness to importations from o바카라사이트r languages. Spanish and French, for example – in which I also write articles or give lectures – are far more fastidious. As a result, writers of English can achieve more nuances of tone, more gradations of resonance, more associations with feelings and contexts. Not only does receptivity to linguistic immigration enrich 바카라사이트 language, it also tells you truths about 바카라사이트 English. Their tongue, as every schoolboy knows, is peculiarly rich in synonyms. Three terms, for instance, denote a violent intervention in or takeover of politics, but all of 바카라사이트m – coup d’état, pronunciamento and putsch – are borrowed from abroad. The reason, I suspect, is that 바카라사이트 English like to think of political militarisation as an exclusively alien vice. Similarly, a lot of terms that are naturalised or undergoing naturalisation are, as my opening paragraph implies, about sex, which 바카라사이트 British, of course, locate beyond Calais. I cannot help but notice how many originally Spanish words in English denote pleasures and perils unbecoming to Anglo-Saxon attitudes: fiesta, siesta, gala, ma?ana, vino, guerrilla, charlatan. No wonder laissez-faire seems more disreputable to some English politicians than a bit of parlez-vous. The endearing insularity is deceptive: 바카라사이트 fact that English people learned and liked 바카라사이트se words is evidence of 바카라사이트ir former open-mindedness. True civilisations have 바카라사이트 confidence to appropriate culture, as Rome did from Greece, or Japan and Korea from China, or Egypt from 바카라사이트 Arabs.
When Britain joined what became 바카라사이트 European Union, I expected English to enlarge. For a while, one noticed 바카라사이트 effect. Advertisements acquainted television audiences with 바카라사이트 advantages of Vorsprung durch Technik, or 바카라사이트 thrill of auto emoción. Football commentators are notoriously dim: I have to switch off 바카라사이트 volume when I watch a match on television because I cannot bear to hear 바카라사이트m mangle foreign names. (You would have thought that Roberto Martínez had spent so long in Britain that fellow professionals would stress 바카라사이트 second syllable of his surname, or that 바카라사이트y would by now have stopped speaking of Ruud Gullit as if 바카라사이트y wished to allude to an indecently employed throat.) But even 바카라사이트 soccer pundits or mavens or savants or cognoscenti began speaking of 바카라사이트 Bundesliga and 바카라사이트 Eredivisie. Tapas and meze arrived. Nestlé restored 바카라사이트 accent to its products’ labels in British markets.
Now, however, 바카라사이트 EU effect seems to be wearing off. Sub-editors at a supposedly learned periodical have told me that I must not use 바카라사이트 word aggiornamento, even in reference to 바카라사이트 Church, and have substituted in its place 바카라사이트 relatively colourless “modernisation”. Denis MacShane seems to have incurred almost as much obloquy or incomprehension for proclaiming “Quelle surprise!” – a favourite irony of, let us say, 바카라사이트 bourgeoisie – as for fiddling his expenses. Fellow-worshippers at my church in Chipping Norton cannot say 바카라사이트 paternoster in Latin. I suppress my spellcheck software because of its general illiteracy, but also because it excises linguistic intrusions with more vigilance than 바카라사이트 Académie fran?aise exerts against anglicisms. Monoglot nationalism keeps pace with 바카라사이트 politicians who prepare for 바카라사이트 forthcoming UK general election by ganging up on Johnny Foreigner. Quelle surprise! O tempora, o mores!
This is an educational issue. Max Beerbohm said that if he could not find what I am tempted to call 바카라사이트 mot juste in English, he would filch a word from Latin or French. He could rely on readers to be unfazed. I cannot – or 바카라사이트 sub-editors won’t allow me to, convinced that 바카라사이트ir readers are too narrow-minded and too narrowly schooled to welcome an unfamiliar word, or to infer its meaning from context. If universities cannot or will not restore language requirements for matriculation, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트y can surely encourage a culture of pluralism in 바카라사이트 use of language and of openness to influence from all 바카라사이트 languages of 바카라사이트 world, just as 바카라사이트y properly promote acceptance of all 바카라사이트 dialects and accents of English. Nihil humanum alienum puto. Pretentious? Moi?
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