++ [ originally posted by Matto ] ++
That's true yeah. I've read some books that were written in real English (the language as it was before 1066 when the French invaded) and it's so completely different. Incredible!
Eddie Izzard made a tv series recently called "Mongrel Nation" in which he showed how many quintesentially British things were actually adopted.
Even the English slang adjective "smashing", which means brilliant or cool, is just a corruption of the Irish "Is maith sin" (pronounced "iss" "moh" (short o, like moth without the t) "shin"), which means "I like it".
He then learned a few basic expressions in Old English, and proceeded to buy a brown cow from a Dutch farmer without knowing a word of Dutch or speaking a word of modern English.
The word "Anglo-Saxon" refers to the invasion/colonisation of England by six Dutch tribes centuries before 1066. Two of the tribes were the "Angles" and the "Saxons".
++ [ originally posted by mikhail ] ++
Eddie Izzard made a tv series recently called "Mongrel Nation" in which he showed how many quintesentially British things were actually adopted.
Even the English slang adjective "smashing", which means brilliant or cool, is just a corruption of the Irish "Is maith sin" (pronounced "iss" "moh" (short o, like moth without the t) "shin"), which means "I like it".
He then learned a few basic expressions in Old English, and proceeded to buy a brown cow from a Dutch farmer without knowing a word of Dutch or speaking a word of modern English.
Bet you ten euros that the part about smashing being Irish can't be found in an Oxford or Cambridge history book btw
The word "Anglo-Saxon" refers to the invasion/colonisation of England by six Dutch tribes centuries before 1066. Two of the tribes were the "Angles" and the "Saxons".
++ [ originally posted by Fliakis ] ++
walking in their kilts when temperatue's bellow zero, drinking beer by gallons and repeating "it's ****en freezen".