Original question by @[email protected]
I like to lean about words from around the world and use them in my speech. I have a particular love for British words. I just love words like spiv, nod, wasteman, barmy, slapper, bruv, shafted, nonce, junkie, bint, smackhead, slag, breve, chav, squiffy, slaphead, dosh, shafted
i used to import words from other countries before tariffs kicked in
I speak English. And, as James Nicoll said,
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
I speak some Spanish and some Dutch, but I don’t know if I borrow many words from them that aren’t “normal” borrow-words.
Pure English should not use Latin Alphabet.
It’s back to celtic writing.
That’s a weird take when it’s not a Celtic language. It’s Germanic (with heavy Romantic old French influence), so you should really be talking about runes or something.
Latin letters are a terrible fit, though, you’re absolutely right about that. It gives you 4 vowels to work with and my spoken dialect has 17.
Dutch is also great at mugging others for words.
I prefer the word biscuit, even as an American. I don’t like saying the word “cracker” because that sounds like its easily misunderstood as an insult to rural white people.
I’ve picked up some words from colleagues, so I often say yalla yalla or acha.
Sometimes American words can be fun like “yo man wassup”.
Words from different countries? That’s cute. Kawaii, even.
Plenty of borrowed words from other languages that don’t have an equal word in English. Shadenfruede. Je ne sai quoi. Cologne. Et cetera (literally).
I speak English natively and Spanish as a second language but most people I talk to speak English as a second language.
When I go back to my hometown I have a pretty noticeable accent and I tend to use a smaller vocabulary.
As a non native english speaker I use quite a lot of Enhlish words in my language as well as some French words here and there.
Nej, jag vägrar att använda utländska ord.
Uff-da
I’m Dutch, but often speak English as I’m fluent in it, so it sometimes mixes. Other words I often use are
- some German, Spanish and French phrases (secondary languages),
- various toasts, like lechajim, skål, depending on the people I’m with,
- some Arabic like shukran, habibi,
- Surinamese slang (kaolo is a fun one)
lechajim
I’ve never seen that spelling before. Usually I see ‘L’chiam’
Since it’s from modern “Hebrew” it doesn’t really matter how you spell it since Hebrew is an abjat script
Along similar lines, I once saw a food review that talked about Peking duck and Beijing, China.
Surinamese slang (kaolo is a fun one)
I love people using it as a synonym for “very”, when in fact means “shit hole”.
That’s the idea of slang
We often toast in the language of the liquid we’re drinking
Nein.
I tend to use kanpai as my toast and cheers in place of thanks as an American
I’ve started learning Sinhala and sometimes I’ll swap between English and the few Sinhala words I know when I’m talking with my girlfriend
Moi?
Oui!
