To think that using foreign phrases in books, etc, is a bit unnecessary and pretentious?

[mm22bys]

It really bugs me when I'm reading a book, or even the odd MN thread!, and someone feels it's necessary to through in a foreign phrase or 10. I can get by with a bit of French, but everything else (for example Latin) goes over my head. I am sure I'm not the only one!

It just seems really pretentious and unnecessary to me, especially since a lot of people can't even speak / write English properly.

AIBU?

Don't we all, mm22bys

Thank you!

clearly you need a babel fish.

Sheik if your labia were as haute as you claim you wouldn't be needing vocab such as hamborgesa!

Black Boy.

Was the other pony's name, I mean.

Isn't CoteDAzur Blue Coast, or suchlike?

Yep. Totally 'pretentious'

Oh me too. I'm Greek

it's true that a lot of people use latin or french phrases as a sort of code for "I'm educated, me". In some cases that is pretentious, but y'know, we all have our annoying typographical tics don't we? using text language ona full keyboard is code for "I text a lot and therefore have a lot of friends"

but lots of foreign phrases are very handy, or have been used so much they are now part of english, as others have said. faux pas, ditto, etc. qed.

Oh SP you're a furrinner too as well as a wordplay

I'm misspelt Arabic, me. By accident.

(i'm not really a foreigner though. i just used to live in spain and am too lazy to change my name)

I meant your name SP not you

I do this quite a bit I think. But the OP and I know each other in RL so she knows already that I am both unnecessary and pretentious.

I quite like it, I find I read too fast and having bits that I don't understand in a story slows me down and makes me think a bit, it also adds a bit of foreign mystery. That only applies if I'm enjoying the book though, otherwise it would annoy me.

yanbu, it is unnecessary and pretentious. But it arouses such joy in the special few who understand it that the writer knows it's worth lobbing in a few bons mots.

I love it when I understand a little bit of forrin

special, moi?

Some words are just lovely, though - schadenfreude is great, as is zeitgeist. And viz.

ic - righty

Ah, lovely words - ein Spiegeleie is my all time favourite.. Very nice with brown sauce.

I studied Latin so I spose I must be educated (??) but I can be buggered if I can remember much of it. Hispullla seemed to lounge around her villa rather a lot while her DH trotted off to the forum. As for Latin words, nominibus was my favourite. Our school didn't have a minibus either.

More important things are stored in my brain these days. Latin grammar has gone the way of various laws of physics and the periodic table. The odd snippet does come in handy for genealogy and very old parish registers tho. Not entirely sure it was worth studying for 3 years for that however!

Anyway - the worst culprit for flinging in a bit of foreign - Antonia Fraser. Ok, so I like historical biographies but I don't expect to have to carry a foreign language dictionary with me while I'm reading one of her books.

I don't understand why a book like Les Miserables, which was written by a French author, originally in French and features French characters in France, has a scattering of French words throughout the English translation.

The characters are speaking French of course,but some of the words are left untranslated and while I understand that sometimes there is no equivalent in English, looking at many of the words, there's a perfectly adequate English term to replace them.

Does anyone understand why this is done?

It's done to add a certian je ne sais quoi, thunder

pee-pee et po-po