More from the student geek.
Apr. 12th, 2006 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielHah! The professor liked one of my thoughts so much that he re-used it in the lecture after the seminar! And it was just a wild guess, really. And if it's as good as it seems to be, I wonder why none of the other hundreds of people studying the Plompton letters seem to have had it. I mean, I know that my relationship to Language is intimate bordering on the indecent, but I have no illusions that it is exclusive - Language is a whore. Especially English. And I doubt very much that this question was just waiting for a movie-geek Japanologist to find the answer. I mean, seriously.
What I said was that I wondered whether the weird change in Mrs. Plompton's reference to her kids people kept asking about ("your children"; "my son") might have something to do with the kind of news: It's "your son" (i.e., her husbands) when the news are good ("I and all your children is in good health"), but "my son" when they're bad ("my lord Archibishop hath indytt my sone William"). Such as to imply that it's her horrible son (and with that, her fault, in a way, and in no way her "riÊ’t worshipfull husband"'s fault)...
anyway, that apparently was ridiculously impressive.
Which leaves me, of course, ridiculously pleased.
... I suppose I should keep it secret that the inspiration came mostly from Lion King. Well, also from Japanese, a bit; I thought it sounded like something Japanese women would do. But mostly, it was Lion King. "Your son is awake." - "Before sunrise, he's your son." Only in reverse.
The rest of the day was spent in my car because I had to pick up two of my cousins in Klein-Umstadt and drop one of them off at my grandmother's and one at my parents'. Augh, backache. I used to be better at driving long distances.
What I said was that I wondered whether the weird change in Mrs. Plompton's reference to her kids people kept asking about ("your children"; "my son") might have something to do with the kind of news: It's "your son" (i.e., her husbands) when the news are good ("I and all your children is in good health"), but "my son" when they're bad ("my lord Archibishop hath indytt my sone William"). Such as to imply that it's her horrible son (and with that, her fault, in a way, and in no way her "riÊ’t worshipfull husband"'s fault)...
anyway, that apparently was ridiculously impressive.
Which leaves me, of course, ridiculously pleased.
... I suppose I should keep it secret that the inspiration came mostly from Lion King. Well, also from Japanese, a bit; I thought it sounded like something Japanese women would do. But mostly, it was Lion King. "Your son is awake." - "Before sunrise, he's your son." Only in reverse.
The rest of the day was spent in my car because I had to pick up two of my cousins in Klein-Umstadt and drop one of them off at my grandmother's and one at my parents'. Augh, backache. I used to be better at driving long distances.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-12 07:51 pm (UTC)"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."
*cackles*
Deleted/reposted to fix spelling error. Because English may steal from other languages, but its speakers *can* spell properly. (According to us, at least...) ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-12 08:12 pm (UTC)Loose vocabulary, more like. Grammar is something Modern English seems to throw away rather than steal. I bet Future!English will have a grammar similar to Chinese...