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Oh, peacemaker, peacemaker make me some peace - Trump Thread #167

1000 replies

Spandauer · 08/07/2026 11:00

Many, many more months of the Mango Mussolini's maniacal merde.

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5545753-green-is-the-new-blue-trump-thread-166

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: Countdown Timer

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placemats · 24/07/2026 14:48

Within the Roman empire it was Latin that became the official language, sine qua non.

SerendipityJane · 24/07/2026 14:53

placemats · 24/07/2026 14:48

Within the Roman empire it was Latin that became the official language, sine qua non.

Which Roman Empire ?

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 14:54

SerendipityJane
England eventually overcame the Norman conquest so entirely that even the language of the invaders has been erased in the UK.

Apart from the thousands of words that haven't been, of course. (Possibly, according to some sources, as much as forty-five per cent of the language, though I am not at all sure about that. I would certainly go with thirty percent, though.) What English does is not replace words, but add new ones all the time whilst continuing to use the previous ones.

To use the classic example, food and the animals it comes from, we have beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison, pullet and pigeon, which all have Norman-Old French origins, as opposed to the Old English cow, ox(en), sheep, pig/swine, calf, deer, hen/chicken and dove.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofFrenchorigin

And just to complicate the issue, some Old French words whose derivatives we still use came not from the Norman conquest but during the earlier Danish one, because the Danes were not above nicking words they found useful, and they had dealings with Old French and with Latin as well. Also, the Normans were not originally French; they were Norse. so their language was not originally French. Rollo, who founded their kingdom, seems very likely to have been born in western Norway. The Danes, naturally enough, say he was Danish....

In fact, it's practically a truism that the language of a conquering people takes over from that of the conquered; that is why English has so few Welsh words in common use in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofWelshorigin

Except, apparently, in Normandy, where they took to Old French.

Sometimes (as in Canada and Tibet and latterly in occupied parts of Ukraine) conquerors actively set out to destroy the language of the conquered and forbid its use. This seems not to have happened here in 1066.

In any case, a wise man (James Nicoll) once pointed out that "English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." One might also say that after a century or so such words (war, cot, caravan, bungalow, castle, forest, cat, apostle, dandelion, orange) become English, rather than English overcoming them.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

placemats · 24/07/2026 14:56

placemats · 24/07/2026 14:48

Within the Roman empire it was Latin that became the official language, sine qua non.

The one that's in the famous musical Jesus Christ! Superstar

eta exclamation mark moved.

SerendipityJane · 24/07/2026 14:59

placemats · 24/07/2026 14:56

The one that's in the famous musical Jesus Christ! Superstar

eta exclamation mark moved.

Edited

That may have been more Greek ,,,,

LizzieW1969 · 24/07/2026 15:04

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 14:54

SerendipityJane
England eventually overcame the Norman conquest so entirely that even the language of the invaders has been erased in the UK.

Apart from the thousands of words that haven't been, of course. (Possibly, according to some sources, as much as forty-five per cent of the language, though I am not at all sure about that. I would certainly go with thirty percent, though.) What English does is not replace words, but add new ones all the time whilst continuing to use the previous ones.

To use the classic example, food and the animals it comes from, we have beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison, pullet and pigeon, which all have Norman-Old French origins, as opposed to the Old English cow, ox(en), sheep, pig/swine, calf, deer, hen/chicken and dove.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofFrenchorigin

And just to complicate the issue, some Old French words whose derivatives we still use came not from the Norman conquest but during the earlier Danish one, because the Danes were not above nicking words they found useful, and they had dealings with Old French and with Latin as well. Also, the Normans were not originally French; they were Norse. so their language was not originally French. Rollo, who founded their kingdom, seems very likely to have been born in western Norway. The Danes, naturally enough, say he was Danish....

In fact, it's practically a truism that the language of a conquering people takes over from that of the conquered; that is why English has so few Welsh words in common use in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofWelshorigin

Except, apparently, in Normandy, where they took to Old French.

Sometimes (as in Canada and Tibet and latterly in occupied parts of Ukraine) conquerors actively set out to destroy the language of the conquered and forbid its use. This seems not to have happened here in 1066.

In any case, a wise man (James Nicoll) once pointed out that "English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." One might also say that after a century or so such words (war, cot, caravan, bungalow, castle, forest, cat, apostle, dandelion, orange) become English, rather than English overcoming them.

Edited

I studied Linguistics at uni so I find this fascinating. 🙂

SerendipityJane · 24/07/2026 15:05

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 14:54

SerendipityJane
England eventually overcame the Norman conquest so entirely that even the language of the invaders has been erased in the UK.

Apart from the thousands of words that haven't been, of course. (Possibly, according to some sources, as much as forty-five per cent of the language, though I am not at all sure about that. I would certainly go with thirty percent, though.) What English does is not replace words, but add new ones all the time whilst continuing to use the previous ones.

To use the classic example, food and the animals it comes from, we have beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison, pullet and pigeon, which all have Norman-Old French origins, as opposed to the Old English cow, ox(en), sheep, pig/swine, calf, deer, hen/chicken and dove.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofFrenchorigin

And just to complicate the issue, some Old French words whose derivatives we still use came not from the Norman conquest but during the earlier Danish one, because the Danes were not above nicking words they found useful, and they had dealings with Old French and with Latin as well. Also, the Normans were not originally French; they were Norse. so their language was not originally French. Rollo, who founded their kingdom, seems very likely to have been born in western Norway. The Danes, naturally enough, say he was Danish....

In fact, it's practically a truism that the language of a conquering people takes over from that of the conquered; that is why English has so few Welsh words in common use in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofEnglishwordsofWelshorigin

Except, apparently, in Normandy, where they took to Old French.

Sometimes (as in Canada and Tibet and latterly in occupied parts of Ukraine) conquerors actively set out to destroy the language of the conquered and forbid its use. This seems not to have happened here in 1066.

In any case, a wise man (James Nicoll) once pointed out that "English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." One might also say that after a century or so such words (war, cot, caravan, bungalow, castle, forest, cat, apostle, dandelion, orange) become English, rather than English overcoming them.

Edited

Having foreign words in your language doesn't equate to speaking that foreign language.

I repeat. Despite being conquered by a Norman French speaking elite, by (say) 1400 the average Englishman could no more understand French than they could in 1066. And it wasn't just their language we smothered. Feudalism faded too. Paving the way for what we today call "parliamentary democracy"

It may be my idiosyncratic view of past events, and should remind us that many things can be true simultaneously. (Even down to quantum science).

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:11

LizzieW1969 · 24/07/2026 15:04

I studied Linguistics at uni so I find this fascinating. 🙂

Try teaching English to foreign students. Poor buggers 😁

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:13

I wonder if anyone's done a thesis yet on 'Trumpish'?!

placemats · 24/07/2026 15:13

I studied Linguistics at uni too @LizzieW1969

Hadn't a clue what prof was talking about half the time 😐

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:26

SerendipityJane · 24/07/2026 15:05

Having foreign words in your language doesn't equate to speaking that foreign language.

I repeat. Despite being conquered by a Norman French speaking elite, by (say) 1400 the average Englishman could no more understand French than they could in 1066. And it wasn't just their language we smothered. Feudalism faded too. Paving the way for what we today call "parliamentary democracy"

It may be my idiosyncratic view of past events, and should remind us that many things can be true simultaneously. (Even down to quantum science).

That is not what you said. You said their language vanished. It did not; it (along with Old English) was absorbed. You then moved the goalposts.

"I repeat. Despite being conquered by a Norman French speaking elite, by (say) 1400 the average Englishman could no more understand French than they could in 1066. " was what you more recently said. Would you readily understand the language spoken in 1700? Probably not, in fact; there has been quite a shift in the language and in pronunciation since then, even if we can agree which English we are talking about. Dialects were a great deal more important then than they have become since the advent of radio and latterly television to provide a template; and even in 1980 a man from Newcastle upon Tyne and a man from Cornwall in the office where I worked had considerable difficulty understanding each other, and used to come to me for translation because I was reasonably fluent in both tongues.

You see, you have to decide what you mean by "English". At the time at which Chaucer was writing, a decade or three before 1400, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was also written (quite possibly by the man who wrote Pearl), and they are not in the same language as each other. Likewise people in Kent spoke a different language from London, Yorkshiremen a different language again, in 1400 (and don't get me started on anything further north). And nobody from any of them would have been able to speak the "English" of 1066.

Your view is certainly idiosyncratic, I feel. I'd love to have had you at the conference I attended in 2000, at which we were supposed to be discussing language changes in this country during the middle ages and had two days of constantly having to establish when any given one of us thought the middle ages had actually been, before we even started to look at what the language had been and where exactly we were talking about.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:28

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:13

I wonder if anyone's done a thesis yet on 'Trumpish'?!

He certainly has Mrs Malaprop beaten into a cocked hat!

RedTagAlan · 24/07/2026 15:36

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:11

Try teaching English to foreign students. Poor buggers 😁

Yup. I am Scottish. By the time I left school may English might as well have been a 2nd language, as I found out after I later moved to England.

I remember one time going into a North London print shop to ask for something to be printed. I might as well have been speaking Martian.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:40

The same applies to someone from Bristol moving to Dundee, I'd suppose.

SerendipityJane · 24/07/2026 15:42

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:13

I wonder if anyone's done a thesis yet on 'Trumpish'?!

Sounds a bit Jabberwocky to me

"Come to me, my Trumpish boy"

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:44

Jabberwocky makes a heap more sense, as well as being a lot less self-aggrandising. And it scans.

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:46

He has gifted us with covfefe and possibly bigly.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:51

He's got a long way to go to catch up with Spenser (100+) or Shakespeare (1700+)!

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:53

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 24/07/2026 15:51

He's got a long way to go to catch up with Spenser (100+) or Shakespeare (1700+)!

How dare you? He's added more words to the English language than anyone else. Ever. 😁

LizzieW1969 · 24/07/2026 15:54

placemats · 24/07/2026 15:13

I studied Linguistics at uni too @LizzieW1969

Hadn't a clue what prof was talking about half the time 😐

It was difficult to follow, admittedly. But the subject is fascinating for me. I knew nothing about Old French previously.

AcrossthePond55 · 24/07/2026 16:00

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 15:13

I wonder if anyone's done a thesis yet on 'Trumpish'?!

That way madness surely lies!

placemats · 24/07/2026 16:06

LizzieW1969 · 24/07/2026 15:54

It was difficult to follow, admittedly. But the subject is fascinating for me. I knew nothing about Old French previously.

We used to meet up in the student bar after lectures to exchange notes over a pint, but it went the way of every reading group I've ever joined 😂

Prof was a lovely man and did his best and even he said it was a tricky subject.

eta it was Germanic languages that fascinated me.

dapsnotplimsolls · 24/07/2026 16:08

AcrossthePond55 · 24/07/2026 16:00

That way madness surely lies!

I guess his rhetorical style would be described as ... meandering!

logicisall · 24/07/2026 16:10

That glitch is long lasting. I checked and only 14 listed right now. So what does this make of the above statement from the T&T gov't which states the circumstances of Sgt Rampersad's death in Jordan?

eta
photo didn't load

walllaw · 24/07/2026 16:10

BustingBaoBun · 24/07/2026 07:21

So do I. What a strong man with such a strong record behind him. His wife was shot in the head as part of an assassination attempt, she was a US representative and it forced her to resign because she's never fully recovered. Also he pulls no punches, he is forceful, and the days of "if they go low we go higher" are gone. The democrats need a scrap dog to fight.
VP Jon Ossoff he talks sense.

Please bear in mind I know absolutely nothing and these are just people I follow!

I went to a small group meet the candidate evening with him and, disappointingly, was underwhelmed.

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