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[Loud Whispers]

french
more like
shoot them all over a trench

I like to sit on a bench
with a lovely french
take them out for a nice lench

[Rowanas]

Yea, the French are language snobs.

They have a publicly funded organisation dedicated to keeping the French language pure.  I wish we had one of those, so that we could enforce Glorious British, and eliminate words like pyjamas and Jaegermeister and mezzanine!

I'm a grammar/spelling etc nazi, but not that much.

[Loud Whispers]

They have a publicly funded organisation dedicated to keeping the French language pure.  I wish we had one of those, so that we could enforce Glorious British, and eliminate words like pyjamas and Jaegermeister and mezzanine!

I'm a grammar/spelling etc nazi, but not that much.

tbh if we had an official british organisation dedicated to keeping british language pure it would inevitably devolve into ironic regulations replacing the you (plural) pronoun with yeet god mcneckass

[Rowanas]

They have a publicly funded organisation dedicated to keeping the French language pure.  I wish we had one of those, so that we could enforce Glorious British, and eliminate words like pyjamas and Jaegermeister and mezzanine!

I'm a grammar/spelling etc nazi, but not that much.

tbh if we had an official british organisation dedicated to keeping british language pure it would inevitably devolve into ironic regulations replacing the you (plural) pronoun with yeet god mcneckass

We're British, it's arse.

[Loud Whispers]

We're British, it's arse.

The official british organisation would be purchased by murricans in a heartbeat

[Kagus]

We're British, it's arse.

The official british organisation would be purchased by murricans in a heartbeat

But American English is copyrighted by the French... *gasp!* It's all coming together now!

[TD1]

We DID have one of those back in the 1800s. They copied the French stance, but ultimately got nowhere and decided the whole pursuit was both ineffectual and stupid. The group stopped it. That was the era of prescriptivism, when many latinate words crept into the language and "you shall not pass" became grammatically incorrect.

Prevailing scholarly opinion follows the vein of David Crystal - descriptivism.

[Rowanas]

We DID have one of those back in the 1800s. They copied the French stance, but ultimately got nowhere and decided the whole pursuit was both ineffectual and stupid. The group stopped it. That was the era of prescriptivism, when many latinate words crept into the language and "you shall not pass" became grammatically incorrect.

Prevailing scholarly opinion follows the vein of David Crystal - descriptivism.

I'm 100% prescriptivist and I acknowledge the futility of my stance, but damnit, I will prescribe the English that I speak until the day I die.  It's mostly lashing out at perceived American cultural hegemonisation.

[Loud Whispers]

Some say lever, some say lever

[Rockeater]

Hey, we have something like this in Hebrew, the only interesting thing I get from them is discovering a bunch of words isn't from Hebrew.

[Arx]

I believe a similar body exists for Afrikaans, which is richly ironic considering its origins.

[Teneb]

Brazil and Portugal both have similar agencies, but instead of "keeping Portuguese pure" they mostly document how the language is evolving, get together to pass reforms to standardize the writing so people from either continent can understand each other, and that sort of thing.

[Loud Whispers]

Brazil and Portugal both have similar agencies, but instead of "keeping Portuguese pure" they mostly document how the language is evolving, get together to pass reforms to standardize the writing so people from either continent can understand each other, and that sort of thing.

That's pretty adorable honestly

[JoshuaFH]

Now, see, there's a difference between speaking your native language and snubbing the dude talking to you in a language you're capable of speaking, and instead going back to a language he doesn't understand in order to talk behind his back when you're in front of him. This happens to sound a bit like the second case, what with the "generally ignoring me" and "not listening" clauses.

I think Naxza was mostly upset about their lack of cleanliness and housekeeping.
As far as I can tell, they're probably just pretending not to understand what he's on about because they're not keen on being nagged. Heck, if I were in their shoes I would probably do the same thing and pretend I only spoke Australian.

This and that. Again, English is the main language of the program. We've had people here from all over Europe and south America. I've been here six weeks, the French people for two. I'm the problem here when I bring up cleanliness or tasks when I'm the one that's telling them how its supposed to be done. Had to spend all last week reminding them to take out the garbage every morning, and then they throw me under the bus to the program lead after I go out and do it for them instead of letting food waste sit in the house for a week, telling the boss that 'they were never shown where the trash goes and that one 'isn't a morning person.'

I brought up today after cleaning the kitchen that there was a handful of popcorn kernels left each on the floor and in the microwave, and the response in turn was 'well, if we're opening that door, someone keeps leaving droplets all over the toilet seat.' Only one reason the statement would be in English, of course, but I sit, and there's a sink attached to the tank reservoir which is about the only way I'd get water on the seat. Furthermore, that's not an appropriate response to 'clean up your food from yesterday' and let's not start a house fire next time someone bakes a potato.

It's not that they don't know enough English, they understand just fine. There's no pretending that they don't understand. I'm not here to clean up after them but they're not here to listen to me tell them otherwise.

Discarding the will to make snide comebacks, does that generally make the situation clearer?

It's exact situations like this that make me terrified of ever living with another human being. I try to play out the situation in my head, and no matter what it always devolves into intense animosity, angry arguing, fist fighting, and ends with someone or both of us going to jail. Granted, the household I grew up in was extremely violent, with fights happening almost daily, so I can't imagine a peaceful home that doesn't involve one member being a servile coward...

[bloop_bleep]

I live in a country where you need at least three languages to be probably able to fully converse with the average person on the street.

You in Switzerland? Or India?