Oct
6th
2014
To Clarify Regarding My Views On French · 8:42am Oct 6th, 2014
I think I upset a couple of people, judging by how Green earned a couple more downvotes when my only activity was a blog post. So to clarify: I do not feel that French is a pretentious language. I think it's rather beautiful. But then, I don't speak it, so to me, it sounds lovely. It also strikes me as the type of thing that an upper class pony might do in a social setting: speak a language she is certain the other pony doesn't speak, to insult them while smiling.
If I have insulted any french speakers in my naivety... I sincerely apologize.
Didn't know you were putting on a christmas play.
In all seriousness, I think you're perfectly right - it is exactly what pretentious people do. My French is not exactly fluent, but it suffices for understanding and basic communication. I have been on the receiving end of insults in French a few times from particularly snooty people - the look on their faces when I replied was priceless! French itself is a beautiful language, as are most if you take the time to know them.
FWIW, I saw nothing in either your blog post or in the latest chapter that could even remotely be interpreted as offensive... and Fleur lapsing into French as she speaks is a pretty well established (if not always used) fan-canon.
Downvotes = haters gonna anon hate. IMO, Reason #eleventy why they need to be removed from the site. Neither FB or Twitter have "dislike" buttons, why do we need them?
2510927 Just because Facebook doesn't have a dislike button, doesn't mean it doesn't need one ...
2510952
Well, in certain contexts, I can see how 'dislike' can work in an FB world. I suppose my overall point though is that downvotes here are worthless without a reason why. Personally, I lean towards, "if you like it, thumb up. If not, just move on". But, if the thumb down has to stay, then I'd at least like to implement a required "why?" prompt when giving a thumb down. Here, a user has to choose from a list of options, such as "poor grammar/spelling", "characters are too OOC", "Did not like the ship", "Other", and so on.
That way, if an author has to receive a downvote, at least they know why.
2510977 That's true, the "downvote with comment explaining why" is definitely more useful than just a downvote by itself.
I am so insulted that I am going to right a pompous letter to the Daily Mail outlining my sensibilities
Hmph.
French sounds lovely/haughty/pretentious because of the evolution of the English language.
Back in the day, the nobility all spoke French, and eventually it thoroughly contaminated the language to the point where Old English is completely incomprehensible to people nowadays; only Middle and Modern English can be understood by modern English speakers, and Middle English sounds very strange.
Also, before English became the lingua franca of international diplomacy, it was French, which is actually where lingua franca comes from - it means, quite literally, the French language. Which is now, ironically, English.
Thus we had it being a high-class thing for a long time, and a lot of our "expensive" words are derived from French or Latin, so it sounds high class or, alternatively, pretentious to us.