“Only English?” I growl, good naturedly. “It’s worth 10 of your tin pot little languages. In fact, it’s made out of 10 of your tin pot little languages!”
It’s true, English is a good natured mongrel called Bitsa. Bitsa this and bitsa that. Which is probably why you know more foreign words than you think.
Like KARAOKE, which in Japanese means empty orchestra; and from the drunken caterwauling I’ve heard at Tokyo karaoke nights, it’s no wonder the band fucks off.
The Norman Invasion 1066 left a dribble of French words in our language, mostly to do with feeding their faces. So we got words like pork, beef and soixante-neuf. That’s 69 on your takeaway menu, Miss.
We flogged a lot of words from the Romans too. Latin verbs like: video I see, disco I dance with, and amo I bonk. A great night out, until you discover that most sexually transmitted diseases are also from the Latin: syphilis, Chlamydia and parenthood.
But don’t confuse our English with American. We really are divided by a common language. In the USA, crisps are chips, jam is jelly and mediation is Clint Eastwood’s point 44 Magnum. The most powerful hand job in the world!
The Germans gave us everyday words like mouse and house. So we can usually guess what they’re shouting at us. Bustenhalter is their typically delicate and sensitive word for bra, but German for Town Hall is Rathouse, so they got that right!
Like Latin, German is a dying language; but don’t tell them! Remember the BBC area forecasts for ships at sea: Dogger, Fisher and GERMANS BITE!
© Mike Atkinson
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