Hi, Mark!  Awhile ago you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  I can also see that if we're talking about having the
 AH>  Browns for dinner we may need to make it clear we don't
 AH>  plan to eat them.  :-)

 ml>  "Respectfully submitted for your perusal - a Kanamit.
 ml>  Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the
 ml>  neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin:
 ml>  unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a
 ml>  moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively,
 ml>  with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another
 ml>  time. This is the Twilight Zone." - /To Serve Man/


           Thereby hangs a tale indeed.  When Columbus landed in North America,
 or so historians now tell us, many of the natives headed for the hills...
while many of the others were either taken to Europe as slaves or expected to
produce gold in larger quantities than they could supply.  Sooner or later he'd
 have to admit he hadn't found India or China... but he needed to persuade his
financial backers he'd found something equally profitable.  I wonder what a
Kanamit might want from me, and I think it unlikely I could outrun him or
her....  :-))



 ml>  i used to speak Turkish (1st) and Japanese (2nd) but
 ml>  haven't since i was maybe 5 years old...


           An interesting combination!  I studied French & Latin in high school
... and I'm glad I did... but I'm also out of practice now.  :-)



 AH>  As a Canadian, OTOH, I see many things written in both
 AH>  English & French where the French version occupies more
 AH>  bandwidth because the words are often longer & there are
 AH>  more of them....  ;-)

 ml>  true... german is similar as well in that they put words
 ml>  together to make a new one... at least, that's the way i
 ml>  understand some of what i've seen and how it has translated...


           Yes, that's my understanding.  I have a knife made in Germany, e.g.,
 which has the word "rostfrei" on the blade.  I'd interpret this word as
meaning literally "rust free" because the knife is clearly made of stainless
steel.  In English we often put nouns together like freight cars too.  However,
 we tend to keep the spaces between them rather than treating them as one long
word.

           WRT French... there was a popular song years ago called "La Plume de
 Ma Tante" which demonstrates what I had in mind.  Translation": My Aunt's
Pen". Then there's the word "amplificateur", which means "amplifier"....  :-)



 ml>  ... and then you get things like...

 ml>  i'm going to unthaw some chicken for dinner.
 ml>  hurry and finish washing up the dishes.

 ml>  and similar... "unthaw" is the wrong word... should
 ML>  be "thaw" or "unfreeze"...


           Uh-huh.  I see "the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue" there
 as well.  Whether GBS said it in exactly those words or whether some
perceptive Americans added it to a musical version of his PYGMALION, I can
relate....  :-)



 ml>  "up" is not needed in the second one at all... can you
 ml>  "wash down", too? 


           Good question.  While I've heard folks from England say "washing up"
 in reference to dishes, they don't specify dishes.  I reckon they say this
only when they're washing dishes & they'd say "I'm going to wash the car" just
as we would... it's not like dressing up or dressing down to suit the occasion.

           Oral speech tends to be rather wordy on occasions when we must think
 on our feet... and most people understand & accept that what they're hearing
is the best we can do on the spur of the moment.  OTOH, I think UK English is
more efficient than North American English at times.  The Browns may be invited
 *to* tea, e.g., but in this context "tea" = a light meal as well as a
beverage.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)