Friday, October 14, 2011

German precision has not been gecancelt

German talk show programme on ARD last evening discussed the introduction of foreign words, mainly English, into their language.

Interesting. They use a large number of English words in computer speak.

Few people knew how to spell Email and the past participle of 'cancel' is 'gecancelt'.

No-on on the panel knew what 'cc' was on the email page.

And a language expert joked that one could use the word 'Klaprechner' for laptop.

As a result of the language reform, three consonants may now come together, so it is permissible to write 'Schfffahrt'.

The Germans reformed their language 10 years ago. There is no deviation from the rule.

Could it happen in any other language?

No comments:

Featured Post

The World Cup turns up all sorts of crazy ideas, great fun

When England won the World Cup in 1966 it was said that it gave a great fillip to Harold Wilson and his Labour government, which had won a l...