Now I remember, whatever common language Europe had in recent centuries could not have been Latin, because Latin pronunciation between different countries is so massively different.
Would this count if, say, a book were written in English but takes place in France, and so sometimes the characters say one or two French words? Or would this fall into another category?
Chaotic Greedy
It takes some self-restraint too not to correct the write-up or folders, but I figure keeping them "bad" is part of the charm of the page.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die." Hide / Show Replies
The recent addition of definite articles however, is even more gratuitous than I expected the page to be. Might be over the top.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
It took a lot of self-restraint to not put in an Austin Powers reference in the trope description, with the "je ne sais quoi, or because the French have a certain... I don't know what," and potholing "I don't know what" to Rule of Cool.
Um... what's with the "actually Latin" nonsense on this and other pages? French was the international language less than 100 hundred years ago, my father was raised with this notion. He grew up as an educated, privileged Greek in Egypt prior to Gamalab d'Nasser (spelling?) making things more fair for Egyptians. I can't think where to find evidence just now, but I remember him saying that French is the international *diplomatic* language. Present tense in the 80s, it's possible he was a little out of time. :) He was born in 1918.
Balancing impressions between him and all the older fiction I've read, I get the impression that Latin and Greek were the languages of science and history, stilted academic stuff. For more human matters among affluent tourists of different nationalities, French was the normal choice. This in an era in which you had to be affluent to be much of a tourist, or at least you grew up affluent. I'm sure the influence of the USA eroded it rapidly, but you don't have to go back much more than a century to find a time when the USA wasn't significant to western culture.
Edited by eekee Hide / Show Replies