2003-07-25 15:07 (UTC+1)

Kongligheterna

Expressen burbles on about the impendulousness of Vickanuptuals ("Kronprinsessan har best�mt sig f�r att Daniel Westling �r den hon vill leva resten av livet med," which is to say, "The Kronprinsess has decided herself for that Daniel Westling is he she will live the rest of her life with." according to unnamed "friends" - don't you just love the way Swedish literalises into almost but not quite Engleesh?) but

But instead, lets have a linguistic update on the Danish saga of Kronprinsfred and his lovely Kudella (n�e "Mary"). His Pompousness, Prins Konsort Henrik, best known as the Queen's other half but also holder of the Danish hissy-fit throwing record, in both the distance and intensity categories, is putting a brave face on the fact that Knudella has got the hang of Danish already, making him look even more useless for not having managed it in 30-odd years:

�Det er dejligt, at Mary har l�rt dansk s� hurtigt.�

S�dan sagde prins Henrik i g�r, da han bes�gte Zirkus Nemo i Svendborg. For et par dage siden afsl�rede kronprins Frederiks k�reste under sit sommerferie-ophold i Skagen, at hun uden problemer kunne sige ordet �fiskekutter�.

["It's delightful that Knudella ('Mary') has learnt Danish so quickly."

So said prins Henrik yesterday, when he visited Zirkus Nemo in Svendborg. For a couple of days ago kronprinsfred's best belov�d revealed during their summerholidayvisit to Skogen that she could say the word �fiskekutter� (fishknife?) without any problems.]

A Mr Grice has asked me to point out that it is reasonable to infer that �fiskekutter� is considered difficult to say, and that Knudella can probably say other things too.

Perhaps not, though - perhaps that's what the delay in announcing the engagement has been.
("Darling Knudella, will you make me the happiest kronprins in Denmark by doing me the honour of consenting to become my wife?"
"Oh kronprinsfred, �fiskekutter�!"
"?!")

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2003-07-25 12:54 (UTC+1)

Lithping King Thethil, etc.

A popular theory about Spanish, which shows up from time to time on sci.lang, holds that the use of an interdental fricative (as spelt "th" in Engleesh) where "c" is written, derives from the influence of a king with a lisp.

But I only recently discovered that there is a whole genre of these when someone asked if the dropping of "r"s in British Engleesh (i.e., non-rhotic dialects) was due to a Hanoverian king which had the appalling impediment of a German accent.

A little googling turns up some sense on these, hurrah:

Tim Curnow dismisses the idea of a lisp, "or else there was a very, very clever, very learned Spanish king. The Spanish interdental fricative turns up everywhere that Latin historically had a 'c' [k] before a front vowel, whereas wherever Latin had an 's' [s] before a front vowel, Spanish has an /s/ [s]. So he managed only to lisp in all those words that were derived from Latin words which historically had a [k] not an [s]"

And it does various others, too. Maybe "Folk linguistics" should be systematically studied in its own right, rather than simply dismissed as irrelevant foolishness, by which I mean complicatedly dismissing it as irrelevant foolishness, of course, rather than actually believing any of it.

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2003-07-24 15:50 (UTC+1)

Retail Therapy!

A 60s printing of the two-volume Shorter English Dictionary for under a fiver? Thank you very much, Mr Oxfam. I was just thinking that a Shorter Oxford would make an ideal house-mate to keep le p'tit Robert company while I'm at working my fingers to the bone to keep the burglars in plastic.

I've been surprised by how often I find myself turning to le p'tit - I generally cascade up through a gem-size and le Micro first to save on heftage, but as you might imagine, they don't always do the job. (I do love le Micro for its accessibility to non-natives, dont moi.)

Also, as well, my most authoritative Engleesh dictionary up to now was a Concise Oxford, and we could hardly afford to have Our Glorious Tongue pushed about by Abroadians, now could we? (Yes, all right. I have a dictionary problem, I admit it.)

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2003-07-24 11:16 (UTC+1)

Sm�rg�spost

There's cricket on, and this is a real Test match, so it's important. (One day games are harmless fun but not important.)

This week I have been burgled, and I am in a very bad mood. (If you are my mother, please note that there will be no lasting ill-effects from this occurrence.) In the aftermath the police have been a model of professionalism and helpfulness, while my bank has sucked meteors through capilliary tubes. Someone who was paying attention and cared could reconstruct the internal administrative structures of this bank just from my exposure to assorted persons and their use me as a channel of communication between them.

I'm coming up to the fifth anniversary of being in full-time work, during which time I've had two jobs, owned two cars, completed one PhD, and not once worn a neck-tie for working purposes. Go me!

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2003-07-23 12:01 (UTC+1)

See?

The interesting bit about this souffl� of a non-story about Vickanness comes right at the end:

Lagen om kungligt giftem�l
"Prins och prinsessa av det kungl. huset m� ej gifta sig, med mindre regeringen p� hemst�llan av Konungen d�rtill l�mnat samtycke. Sker det �ndock, have han eller hon f�rverkat arvsr�tt till riket f�r sig, barn och efterkommande."

The Law on Royal Marriages

A prince or prinsess of the Royal Hice may not marry unless parliament gives consent on the request of the King. Otherwise, he or she will forfeit the right to inherit the throne for his or herself and his or her children and descendents.

I'd love to be a parliamentarian for that debate. ("I put it to the House that her prinsessness's intended is, frankly, not much of a looker!" "Hear, hear!" "Shame!") Still, groomed for consorthood he very much is thought to be being [grammar].

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2003-07-23 09:02 (UTC+1)

Nos amis les fran�ais

The BBC comes up trumps again - a handbook for the usage of American GI's complaining about the French, now with added historically resonant irony:

Gripe number 6 is the classic: We spend our time getting the French out of scrapes. Have they ever done anything for us?

To which the answer from the hats in central command comes: "Of course they have. They helped us out of an even worse scrape. During the American revolution, when nearly the whole world was against us or indifferent, France came to our aid and was our greatest benefactor."

Available in French at an Amazon bookshop near me, hoorah!

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2003-07-22 10:23 (UTC+1)

Feature attraction

It's all go, isn't it? Vickan and her boyfriend went to the cinema:

Nu f�rs�ker kronprinsessan Victoria och pojkv�nnen Daniel Westling inte l�ngre d�lja sin k�rlek.

I g�r i kramades paret helt �ppet efter ett biobes�k i Stockholm.

[Now kronprinsess Victoria and her boyfriend Daniel Westling no longer try to conceal their love.

Yesterday, the couple hugged quite openly after a cinema visit in Stockholm.]

You might think that this is borderline stalkage, but on the other hand you might think this is a careful testing of the waters of public opinion as the relationship becomes more serious. (One of the things I like best about monarchies is that they offer a counterweight to the otherwise hegemonic opinion that relationships are a purely personal matter, which is not to say that I don't think that in general they should be. And what with them being ridiculously privileged, the quantity of sympathy one is disposed to bestow is entirely discretional, unlike some other situations in which a choice of mate is constrain by factors other than mutual desire. One of the other things I like best about monarchies is all the prinsessor, I freely concede in case you think I'm pretending only to be about the intellectual high ground.)

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2003-07-21 14:29 (UTC+1)

Yeah, what he said

I'd kind of got used to "courriel" as French for "email", without knowing (or caring) much about how it had come to pass, but it seems to have become a popular silly-season French-bashing meme, so I was glad to encounter some typically lucid and unhysterical discussion at Pedantry. Note also the following post, which performs a further valuable public service in quoting (in the official English translation) the relevant section of the relevant law on these matters.

As most of the silly silly-seasonistes have apparently failed to remark, courriel is a Quebecism which the Frenchy-French have been more than necessarily belated about; it's used widely enough in enough media that it has been installed for some time in my personal mental lexicon as the default term; it's actually, in my considered, a good word; there are very few and very specific contexts where its use is legally obliged; and it (officially) replaces in (only) these contexts the previous (terrible) choice "courrier �lectronique", which got the job over five years ago. I think "courriel" has the winner-nature, personally, and I fully expect it to prosper.

(Incidentally, Swedish has "e-post" for email, and the very calqued "mjukvara" for software (Fr. "le logiciel").)

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2003-07-21 14:07

Vickan stays out quite late

She is very concerned about the fate of the elderly, how touching:

I g�r rockade Victoria och pojkv�nnen Daniel Westling loss p� Rolling Stones-konserten i Globen.
- Det ska bli j�ttekul att se Stones, sa kronprinsessan glatt.

[Victoria and her boyfriend Daniel Westling rocked out yesterday at the Stones concert in the Globe.
"It'll be rilly cool to see the Stones," said the kronprinsess happily.]

Life! On! The! Edge!

They're not taking any risks with their carriage turning back into a pumpkin, though:

Victoria och Daniel l�mnade Globen med stora leenden klockan 23.55 i natt.

Victoria and Daniel left the Globe smiling broadly at five minutes to midnight.

Phew!

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