Posted by Jonathan on January 31, 2002, at 23:21:37
In reply to Garde ta Foy? » Jonathan, posted by sid on January 31, 2002, at 0:56:47
Sid,
You are, of course, correct. The noble, feminine old French noun "Foy" evolved into the the feminine modern French "Foi"; she did not change her gender to become "foie", a puerile, masculine noun despite his potentially misleading final "e".
http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/cambridgeshire/az/cambridge/magdalene-college.htm
Magdalene College, Cambridge, used to have an unfortunate reputation for excessive student drinking. An inebriated hooray Henry, returning to his rooms at Magdalene to sleep off several hours over-indulgence across the road at The Pickerel Inn (like Harry Potter's friend Hermione sneaking back to Gryffindor dorm after she solved Professor Snape's logic problem and drank the two bottles of wine) might read his College's motto and smile at the appropriateness to his condition of my schoolboy-howler mistranslation.
> I am not sure who Norman French is
LOL - Norman French is the old French dialect spoken by the Normans, led by William of Normandy, who conquered England in 1066. *Please* read the sample pages from 1066 and All That by Sellar and Yeatman when Dr-Bob inserts a link to amazon.com (Thanks, Dr-Bob!), then read about William the Conqueror in Chapter XI - you'll love this book :)
As a student of English Lit, Emma could certainly tell you about the contribution Norman French, which became the language of the aristocracy while peasants continued to speak Anglo-Saxon, made to modern English. It explains, for example, why our words for farmyard animals as the peasant would see them in the field are of Anglo-Saxon origin (pig, cow, lamb, horse, sausage, potato), while we use nouns of French origin to refer to the same animals as they would be served on the feudal lord's dining table (pork, beef, Mouton Cadet Rothschild, hors d'oeuvres, crapaud dans le trou, fri(t)es).
Emma and I hail from the same "cuello del bosche" (a Spanish colloquialism you must have assimilated while working in Uruguay). I am a graduate of her university, but from a different era, a quarter of a century ago, before 16 of the 22 undergraduate colleges admitted the civilizing and maturing influence of the fair sex: of the other six colleges, three were exclusively for ladies; and only three admitted both women and boys. It was this majority of exclusively male colleges that nurtured the puerile humour of Douglas Adams (St John's, 1971), the Monty Python team in the 1960s, and me.
Please do not mistake my puerile literal translation of "neck of the woods" into Spanish for a lack of respect for your linguistic acumen, Sid. As a monoglot philistine mathematician, I envy your fluency in three languages, my wife's in four, and Emma's enterprise in learning sign language; but my admiration will not deter me from remarking that your combination of Eng Lit and sign language is a perfect preparation, Emma, for a future career teaching something like this :)
http://www.montypython.net/scripts/semaphore.php
Nor does my levity about the serious problems you are facing signify a lack of concern, Emma. I wish only to be supportive by trying to make you smile :)
Alcohol still plays a significant role in my social life, though at a level of consumption which has allowed me to reach the ripe old age of 48 without apparent damage to my health. When I was in my early 20s its role was so central to normal social life as a student that I should have been devastated to be told, as you have, that I must suspend my studies to attend a four-week rehab programme and then somehow begin to enjoy a social life without drink. It would seem worse than being excluded from PSB. I believe that your understandable fear has much more to do with social exclusion and the loss of the independence for which you returned to uni than with addiction.
I hope my attempts at humour didn't obscure the core of my message: in my experience, neither the social pressure on students to drink, nor my depressive illness, was enough without the other to create a serious, health-endangering alcohol problem. I hoped that you might see a tiny ray of hope in this message.
Other than support, the function of this community is education. You were right, Sid, to correct my appalling French, even though it was intentionally appalling :)
Jonathan.
poster:Jonathan
thread:17455
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020125/msgs/17644.html