John Edwards admits to affair with Rielle Hunter

[Drem]

which is funny, because english is a direct descendant of german;

I dunno if I would say that

English is a complete melting pot of the romance languages, german, slavic, etc that I'm not sure you could even really say it was a descendant of any specific language

Nope, wrong, Leah's right. English is 100% descended from Germanic language. You're thinking about the words, not the grammar. English mechanics are almost identical to German, whereas it's not even 5% the same as Spanish or French (for instance, we don't have gender in our words, and generally don't construct sentences like "the boat red down the river came." Our noun declension is effectively non-existent except for adding apostrophe S to the end of a word, etc). Any linguist will tell you this

What you're talking about is how the Lexicon is like twice the size of every other language on the planet (which is why English is considered the hardest language in the world to speak fluently) because we take so many random words from every other language. Like how "Yo!" is from Japanese, etc., etc.,

So yes, you're right that mostly what we say is not based in any one language, but the way we say it is almost 100% Germanic. Listen to Swedish language sometime, too, you'll be surprised how similar all our languages are in structure

[Harrison]

This thread has definitely improved lol

[Drem]

Because language is a lot more interesting/important than politicians and their affairs

If this was a real current affairs forum I'd expect to have seen some actual current affairs being discussed, like how on the opening day of the Olympics, Israeli-backed, US-supporting Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers and killed 1,000 for the oil pipeline at Tskhinvali, South Ossetia

But I don't debate politics here. It's like talking to brick walls and never very constructive/intelligent

[brinstar]

damn straight it is

i will add that most of our scientific words come from either greek or latin because while the sophisticates in rome and greece were busy wrapping their brains around Tough Questions, the germanic hicks were eating sausage and drinking mead

[Arlos]

Yes, I'm bigoted because I don't like people being in our country illegally.

No, you're bigoted because you assume, with no evidence whatsoever, that somehow MOST of the people of hispanic descent or who are spanish speakers in the US are here illegally, simply because of the fact that they ARE hispanic or spanish-speaking. That's enough bullshit to bury the entire bull.

-Arlos

[Harrison]

Because language is a lot more interesting/important than politicians and their affairs

If this was a real current affairs forum I'd expect to have seen some actual current affairs being discussed, like how on the opening day of the Olympics, Israeli-backed, US-supporting Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers and killed 1,000 for the oil pipeline at Tskhinvali, South Ossetia

But I don't debate politics here. It's like talking to brick walls and never very constructive/intelligent

I hate how I heard more about celebrities dying than coverage on that.

I did a LOT of reading on South Ossetia and the politics leading up to this war. I hate our fucking media.

[Drem]

I hate how I heard more about celebrities dying than coverage on that.

I did a LOT of reading on South Ossetia and the politics leading up to this war. I hate our fucking media.

And the only "celebrity" out of the list worth mentioning was Solzhenitsyn.

Anyways, to our media's credit, during the opening ceremonies when the camera was on Vladimir Putin and the Russian athletes were coming out, a commentator on NBC brought up Ossetia. That's about the only media coverage I've really seen of it, heh. Obama and McCain both condemn the violence and want it to stop, but of course McCain took it to the next level and immediately assigned the blame to Russia:

"Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory,” McCain said. He also called for “a truly independent” international peacekeeping force for South Ossetia, and said the United States should work with the European Union and the OSCE to pressure Russia to halt its military efforts. (Truly independent peacekeeping force = what we're doing in Iraq, by his standards).

Keep in mind the Georgian PM Saakashvili was more or less on sale to America and now drags behind himself the Georgian people to their destruction. Claiming they're being attacked because they're in pursuit of Western ideals like democracy, or freedom, or some bullshit, whatever. It's just another penis war imo

[Harrison]

Completely.

From what I gather, being almost entirely ignorant from here, it's just a huge fucking cock swinging.

[Narrock]

Why would anybody want to learn Latin in this day and age? It's a dead language for cryin out loud. Take a cool language like German or Russian.

[Harrison]

Because learning Latin opens up a LOT of understanding in a shitload of languages?

[Arlos]

Drem: Not to mention, McCain's foreign policy adviser is a paid lobbyist for Georgia. They have already shelled out $800k to the guy, and he's in the middle of a current $200k contract (or just finished one, can't remember). Rather amusing factoid, that.

Is it any wonder McCain has been slobbering over their nuts?

-Arlos

[Lueyen]

Drem: Not to mention, McCain's foreign policy adviser was a paid lobbyist for Georgia. They have already shelled out $800k to the guy, and his firm from which he has taken a leave of absence for the duration of the campaign is in the middle of a current $200k contract (or just finished one, can't remember). Rather amusing factoid, that.

Is it any wonder McCain has been slobbering over their nuts?

-Arlos

The connection is there without having to miss represent it as something more then it is.

[Martrae]

Yes, I'm bigoted because I don't like people being in our country illegally.

No, you're bigoted because you assume, with no evidence whatsoever, that somehow MOST of the people of hispanic descent or who are spanish speakers in the US are here illegally, simply because of the fact that they ARE hispanic or spanish-speaking. That's enough bullshit to bury the entire bull.

-Arlos

Hmmm...there are estimated 10 million illegals Hispanics.

There is roughly 14 million Hispanics that don't speak English in the US.

You do the math.

[Martrae]

Why would anybody want to learn Latin in this day and age? It's a dead language for cryin out loud. Take a cool language like German or Russian.

There are significant educational benefits to learning Latin. The biggest for me being that kids that study Latin score consistently better on college entrance exams than kids that learn any other language.

[Tikker]

Because language is a lot more interesting/important than politicians and their affairs

If this was a real current affairs forum I'd expect to have seen some actual current affairs being discussed, like how on the opening day of the Olympics, Israeli-backed, US-supporting Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers and killed 1,000 for the oil pipeline at Tskhinvali, South Ossetia

But I don't debate politics here. It's like talking to brick walls and never very constructive/intelligent

Meanwhile U.S. President George W. Bush repeated on Friday his demand that Russia get out of Georgia, saying the Cold War is over.

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," he told reporters at the White House.

tee hee, I love how he slags himself, and doesn't realize it

[Narrock]

Why would anybody want to learn Latin in this day and age? It's a dead language for cryin out loud. Take a cool language like German or Russian.

There are significant educational benefits to learning Latin. The biggest for me being that kids that study Latin score consistently better on college entrance exams than kids that learn any other language.

Ok, that's an interesting perspective actually.

[Tikker]

part of it is that latin is the basis for most scientific terminology (partly because it IS a dead language)

it's also the basis for all the romance languages

ie, understand latin, and french, spanish, etc seem real familiar

[Haylo]

Watch any documentary on the spelling bee and you'll realize the importance of Latin. Like the other posters have said if you know Latin your ability to pick up languages is greatly improved. If you have kids then it's an invaluable investment to get them immersed in languages sooner rather than later. They say that b/w the ages of birth-10yrs kids can learn any number of languages. I believe that's so because my niece and nephews absorb the two languages they are learning like sponges and their accents are perfect, something most adults learning a language will not achieve.

[Kramer]

latin is important in the same way that sanscrit and ancient greek are important, in that if you begin to learn it you learn the foundations of human language....

and it's not dead, it's carried on in many languages

[Zanchief]

Why would anybody want to learn Latin in this day and age? It's a dead language for cryin out loud. Take a cool language like German or Russian.

There are significant educational benefits to learning Latin. The biggest for me being that kids that study Latin score consistently better on college entrance exams than kids that learn any other language.

Well that's a pretty deceiving statistic. The reason kids who know Latin score better on entrance exams is because kids who learn Latin most likely got a far better education.

It has nothing to do with the actual knowledge they’re applying from Latin.

[Martrae]

Why would you think kids that learn Latin are getting a far better education than kids that learn French or Spanish (the two most common HS languages)?

[Drem]

Because Latin's only offered in wealthy private schools or huge inner city public HSs, imo. I know no public school in and around Eugene, out of the 10 or so, that offers anything other than French, Spanish, German, Russian, or Japanese if you're lucky. My HS offered only French and Spanish.... they're not the most common "just because".... it's because most schools are poor, and can only afford a handful of language programs. So they pick the most useful language for the students to learn in an every-day environment. But I know how you feel about learning Spanish

The only way I ever had any experience whatsoever in school with Latin was through an AP English course where we learned some very basic things about it.... which backs up Zanchief's point about Latin's relevance to better education

I wish the most common language in American high schools was Latin, too, trust me. It's a lot more useful/important/intelligent/etc in a worldly sense, than learning one of its lovechildren languages like Spanish or Portugese. But we don't always get what we want and SAT scores being influenced by knowledge of Latin doesn't really seem relevant to me. I have to agree with Zanchief there

[Arlos]

*shrug* My public high school offered a class in latin, and it was not "huge". Had like 1500-1600 people across all 4 grades. Nor was it Inner City, as it was in a suburb city of San Francisco. (San Mateo, to be specific, for anyone who knows the Bay Area)

I must admit, though, that it was all through the efforts and volunteerism of the AP English teacher, as the class was held at a special 0th period time, starting at like 7:30, an hour before most people would get to the school. So, he was basically adding it into his schedule just because he felt it was important to teach it, and give students who were interested the option. I was tempted, but I didn't want to have to get to school at 7:30, so I didn't take it. heh. He was a good english teacher though, even if he was way way too into authors like Thomas Hardy. (Tess of the D'Urbervilles. /barf /barf /barf)

-Arlos

[brinstar]

wish i had been lucky enough to have a shot at learning latin in high school

i could take it now, yes, but i'm trying to finish my undergrad asafp so i will only take it if i absolutely can't get any requirements done

[Martrae]

But I know how you feel about learning Spanish :lope

Apparently, you missed where I said my kids were free to learn it AFTER they spent some time with Latin. And for the record, I spent 5 years of school learning Spanish.

And, IMO, Latin isn't taught at schools moreso because the attitude of people who say "It's a dead language" than any other reason. If more parents insisted it be taught it would be, but too many don't see any value to it.