(October 10, 2015 at 6:38 pm)MTL Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 5:40 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: Je suis allé au Canada il y a longtemps quand vous n'aviez pas besoin de passeport. S'il vous plaît excuser mon Français. Ce n'est pas natif, mais j'aime les langues de toutes sortes.

 Je suis étudiant Français, moi-même.

vous prenez une classe ou étudier indépendamment ?

(October 10, 2015 at 6:47 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:25 pm)MTL Wrote: You are absolutely right.  No arguments.  I was painting in rather broad strokes to get my point across about Anglos and Francos, in Canada, today.
I could go into the entire history of New France, Creole, Acadien/Cajun,
....and even Huguenots...but we'd be here, awhile 

EDIT:  I sincerely hope I didn't offend you with my generalization.  I know the story of the Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq; I know the story of New France and the British Colonies and Québec....I actually have Huguenot ancestry, myself, and THAT's a whole nother story, too.

No! I'm delighted that you know about us at all. Most people just sweep us in with the other Canadian French, and we're nothing like them. In fact, we were often disinclined to get along with them at all, especially early on, because we had fled the fighting around La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and disdained all things of the nobility and the old empire. It's why we stayed so isolated until the 18th century (1710) thrust itself upon us, as the French and British both took interest in the region because the Brits built Halifax (and its harbor) as a fairly major naval base in the region.

If you have not read them, and you'd like to know more about our history and culture, I recommend the following three books, in order of recommendation:

The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803 by Carl A. Brasseaux (which, despite the title, also contains the origins in l'Acadie.)

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland by John Mack Faragher

The Cajuns: Americanization of a People by Shane K. Bernard

(As a bonus book, if you want something more cultural and more fun, try Gumbo Ya-ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana, edited by Saxon, Dreyer, and Tallant. "Ya-ya", or "aya", comes from an Afro-Caribbean word for rice, and forms the second half of the word Jambalaya, jambon + a la + aya, or roughly "ham-and-rice".)

Rock, you are a walking encyclopedia of Cajon history. Because of you, I will never confuse Cajuns and Creoles.

(October 10, 2015 at 8:59 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:38 pm)MTL Wrote:  Je suis étudiant Français, moi-même.

vous prenez une classe ou étudier indépendamment ?

Indépendamment.

Quoth Shaw, "The English and the Americans are two peoples separated by a common language."

(October 10, 2015 at 9:14 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote:

(October 10, 2015 at 6:47 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: No! I'm delighted that you know about us at all. Most people just sweep us in with the other Canadian French, and we're nothing like them. In fact, we were often disinclined to get along with them at all, especially early on, because we had fled the fighting around La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and disdained all things of the nobility and the old empire. It's why we stayed so isolated until the 18th century (1710) thrust itself upon us, as the French and British both took interest in the region because the Brits built Halifax (and its harbor) as a fairly major naval base in the region.

If you have not read them, and you'd like to know more about our history and culture, I recommend the following three books, in order of recommendation:

The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803 by Carl A. Brasseaux (which, despite the title, also contains the origins in l'Acadie.)

A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland by John Mack Faragher

The Cajuns: Americanization of a People by Shane K. Bernard

(As a bonus book, if you want something more cultural and more fun, try Gumbo Ya-ya: Folk Tales of Louisiana, edited by Saxon, Dreyer, and Tallant. "Ya-ya", or "aya", comes from an Afro-Caribbean word for rice, and forms the second half of the word Jambalaya, jambon + a la + aya, or roughly "ham-and-rice".)

Rock, you are a walking encyclopedia of Cajon history. Because of you, I will never confuse Cajuns and Creoles.

I find it fascinating, but wouldn't call myself an encyclopedia. I just happen to own those four books and have them sitting here next to my desk. They were recommended by Dr. Brasseaux (a friend of my mom's), one of the premier Cajun historians in the state. Thought I'd pass along the recommendations.

(October 11, 2015 at 12:41 am)MTL Wrote: When someone says "kick him to the curb" they certainly succeed in conveying a clear mental image,
even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

I dunno, it sounds very much like Shakespeare, to me. He was always making up turns of phrase like that. 

One of my favorite Shakespearean inventions is the term "elbow-room".

He invented lots of badass and still-used phrases.

I don't make a fetish of traditional terms myself. We are taught that the classics are high art, but if you look at the writing, oftentimes it is far outside the bounds of what was considered at the time good writing -- Hemingway with his run-on sentences, Chaucer with his bawdy punnery, and so forth. The spoken language is only different in that it evolves faster than the written language, but that evolution is entirely natural, because humans use language to describe their experiences, and their experiences change with the eras.

I'm not fond of American shorthand -- "thru", "nu", text-speak, and so on -- but I think that is probably a result of it being evolved from the language as I learnt it, rather than the language itself being debased. Simply because something is old doesn't mean it's better, and simply because something is new, that doesn't mean it is intrinsically inferior. Repurposing words, shortening their length, introducing slang into the "proper" lexicon ("ain't" got your teacher's opprobrium when I was a child, but it's in the OED now) -- that's all fine with me, because at the root of it, language is a tool, and a tool is only as survivable as it is adaptable.

I write that as a lifelong lover of the language.

(October 11, 2015 at 1:29 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(October 11, 2015 at 12:41 am)MTL Wrote: When someone says "kick him to the curb" they certainly succeed in conveying a clear mental image,
even though it isn't exactly Shakespeare.

I dunno, it sounds very much like Shakespeare, to me. He was always making up turns of phrase like that. 

One of my favorite Shakespearean inventions is the term "elbow-room".

He invented lots of badass and still-used phrases.

Mazactly!

(October 11, 2015 at 1:42 am)Parkers Tan Wrote: I don't make a fetish of traditional terms myself. We are taught that the classics are high art, but if you look at the writing, oftentimes it is far outside the bounds of what was considered at the time good writing -- Hemingway with his run-on sentences, Chaucer with his bawdy punnery, and so forth. The spoken language is only different in that it evolves faster than the written language, but that evolution is entirely natural, because humans use language to describe their experiences, and their experiences change with the eras.

I'm not fond of American shorthand -- "thru", "nu", text-speak, and so on -- but I think that is probably a result of it being evolved from the language as I learnt it, rather than the language itself being debased. Simply because something is old doesn't mean it's better, and simply because something is new, that doesn't mean it is intrinsically inferior. Repurposing words, shortening their length, introducing slang into the "proper" lexicon ("ain't" got your teacher's opprobrium when I was a child, but it's in the OED now) -- that's all fine with me, because at the root of it, language is a tool, and a tool is only as survivable as it is adaptable.

I write that as a lifelong lover of the language.

I refuse to give up my use of the perfectly-good second person plural contraction, "y'all". I don't care who thinks it makes me sound like a stupid Southerner.