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Actually,

most of us have decided on a mixture of old and new. The kids who grew up with the new system follow it, tho' the ß is making a big comeback with the younger generation for some reason. Fine with me, I like having a special symbol.

Die Zeit objected for the best possible reason. Nobody asked their opinion and they consider themselves to be "the" predominate fountain of German thought, reason, poetry and philosphy.

Just ask them.

Did the Rechtschreibreform actually make things easier? My feeling is that it really cleaned up punctuation, reduced "Schachtelsätze" and simplified spelling in word families.

It did, however, introduce some absurd, stupid, laughable and totally illogical adjectival and adverbial forms which, rightly, have been rejected and will no doubt be cast out at the next conclave.

My university demands our students write exclusively in the new form of High German, American English or Latin.

Period.

I still use the old form to write emails to an especially anal-retentive nasty young-dynamic-manager in the administration who then sends back a note demanding I conform to the regulations. Since we have to correspond 30-40 times a semester, it gives me great satisfaction to post his replies on the bulletin board in the Germanistic department. They then mark up his errors and send them on to other departments.

Es lebe der "ß"!
 
In a pub in Ireland *English spoken, American understood*

Greek has three forms.

1- Purist
2- Proper "journalistic" language
3- Everday "spoken"

There are three "E"s, two "O" and seven dithongs. The grammar and usage changes with the government.

I'm not sure one would say it is a living, evolving language as is English. It is chock-full of foreign words to the point that the "real" word is no longer known or may not ever have existed.

In English you can talk technology but nto so much emotions or feelings; in Greek, LAWD have mussy, you can describe someone's character to a "T". Describing your web-browser and printer, not so much.

So yay to the quirks of language.
 
and don't think changes to language...

...are just for the non-english language countrys.

Since our change of government at the last election in late 2007, there have been numerous 'spelling corrections' within the Australian Government - some of which are just pathetic...

As an example, we are no longer allowed to spell 'Programme' but have to use 'Program' (and I am not going to get into the whys and where fors about which is correct or not as it varies from country to country...lets just accept that the first version is the correct version for this country) in any document or website that carrys the Australian Government coat of arms or in any correspondence....

...and there are others too
 
Oz spelling revisions??

Hi Chris,

Say what? When did that happen? What other "corrections" are afoot? No offense to our American friends, but is this all the result of us raising our children on "Sesame Street" instead of adequately funding our own ABC (the national government-funded broadcaster) to produce high-quality children's programmes so that our own dialect of English is taught and preserved? It almost seems that way.

Also, to the German speakers, I learnt German at high-school and university in the early 70's. I've therefore only ever known the "old" way and found it the most logical system around. Yet when I said that to German people, they thought I was nuts. Interestingly, they could spell perfectly in English. It always made me wonder whether our ability to spell our native tongue is a function of our early schooling, rather than any inherent problem of the language itself. Japan and China seem to have a very high level of literacy and they have far more complex written forms than we have to contend with.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Nick
 
Nick--

English is a funny, shaggy beast of a language. Instead of being a truly Latinate language, like Italian, French, Spanish....it's part Latinate and part Germanic. I don't really speak any German beyond "Schitten sie milch, bitte," and "Bomsen" (apologies if misspelled,)however, I am slowly learning German so I can read certain documents in the original.

As for cultural identity, it is a challenge, especially since some of the best (and worst) of the culture of the United States is exported. Levis are a good export (I think,) and most of our television is a dreadful export. My objection to Sesame Street (and I am a Sesame Street Uncle,) is that it is too fast-paced.

I firmly believe that the most useful attitude is "take what you like, and leave the rest."

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Languages evolution : English and Italian

English is a plain language with very little "bells & whistles". Just subject + verb + predicate/object and one can communicate even a complex idea by few words

Italian could be nearly as plain as English ... but the more you add "bells & whistles", the more it is considered "trendy"

People in talk/reality shows move their mouths without producing any simple decent idea

Our politicians can talk for hours without saying anything.

They look like a driver who keeps on turning around in a roundabout.

Not to mention our law language : on june we'll have to vote in a referendum. We need the referendum questions translated into current italian as they are written in a foreign tongue only lawyers understand
 
Timberland

Timberland shoes along with Moncler duvet jackets were a status symbol of "Paninari" (sounds like "Sandwichers", as they were Burghy/McDonald addicted).
These were upper class Milanese teenagers back in the 80s
 
Re: Post #346054

Weinbrenner work boots and shoes are union-made in Merrill, WI which is only 17 miles north of Wausau. Thanks for buying American Rich, we salute you.
 
PassatDoc,

Thanks for the tip on the international setting for the keyboard.

let's see... Alt-s brings up the history drop down menu... in Firefox.. not the funny B.

Oh well.
 
Polkanut,

Thanks.

I just got the Weinbrenner catalog in the mail yesterday.

They sell the delivery truck "Doubleshift" line as the "Thorogood" line, on-line. Or something. Anyway, I'm very impressed with the quality and fit. Usually after a month a boot worn every day shows its faults. So far the only nit I have to pick with these is that the laces are too long... which is easily corrected with a pair of scissors and a lighter.
 
The function of a drop down character box

was lost between Firefox 2.x and 3.x.

Considering that most of us use more than the low-ASCII symbol set from the first half of the 20th century, this was a great loss.

There are add-ins which solve the problem (but have conflicts with the dedicated Ubuntu hot keys, for instance) as well as the solution I use: I set my keyboard to IBM-German and have the full range.

If you need the symbols frequently, Windows XP and higher (higher? Worse-er?!) offer that language bar down by the system tray which lets you switch back and forth between layouts quickly and easily.

Of course, if it is just one or two symbols but they show up in your work constantly, you can use on-board applets in XP to add them to any TTF Font or higher.

If all else fails, pretend you're Swiss. They got rid of the ß.
 
Oz spelling revisions?? Say what? When did that happen?

Hey Nick,

I doubt that this is something that is headed to 'dictionary land' as far as MacQuarie are concerned, but the change of the way government departements write and spell changed in the first couple of weeks of the current government.

I was re-writing guidelines for a national programme at the time and had to change from 'programme' to 'program' because of our petty elected leaders...

If you have a look at a variety of government websites, you'll see all sorts of inconsistancies that changes have caused as sections get the opportunity (or are forced) to update them.
 
I believe Ford Motor Corporation once mandated that "gauge" be spelled "gage". Ostensibly to save on time required to type documents. But probably more because "gauge" can be a spelling issue.

I'm taking a class in conversational Chinese (Mandarin), and the pinyin writing system tends to stand English pronunciation on its head and beat it around a bit.

For example, the letters "liu" would be pronounced like we say "leo"... "fen" is pronounced "fun". "Q" is pronounced like we say "ch"... and that's not even getting into the unexpected ways that pinyin "z", "c", and "r" are pronounced...

The teacher has explained that pinyin was devised with a Russian influence... I suppose...
 

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