BS: one word or two

[Doug Johnson]

Bull shit or Bullshit?

[Samantha's_Song]

Or cow shit, or sheep shit, or chicken shit... Okay then, I'd use bullshit :D

[Maryn]

I am holding in my hand a book titled "On Bullshit." It's from Princeton University Press. That's good enough for me to say it's one word.

Maryn, philosophy dilettante

[Doug Johnson]

Or cow shit, or sheep shit, or chicken shit... Okay then, I'd use bullshit :D

An example of what I was thinking: one word metaphorical, two words literal.

[Mr. Chuckletrousers]

Bull shit or Bullshit?
"Bullshit" is usually (in my experience), written as one word. However, "bull pucky", "buffalo foofies", "bovine excrement", "moo poo" and many other euphamisms and synonyms come in two words. One-word synonyms include "bushwa", "postmodernism", "bunkum" and "hogwash".

[Bufty]

Errr - just a thought - how about checking in a dictionary?

Bullshit is a real word, you know.

[Doug Johnson]

Errr - just a thought - how about checking in a dictionary?

Bullshit is a real word, you know.

Sometimes, a dictionary is like a doctor with bad bedside manners: too clinical to capture all the subtleties.

[smoothseas]

Sometimes, a dictionary is like a doctor with bad bedside manners: too clinical to capture all the subtleties.

now that's the truf *and all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth*

[Chris Huff]

I am holding in my hand a book titled "On Bullshit." It's from Princeton University Press. That's good enough for me to say it's one word.

Maryn, philosophy dilettante

On Bullshit is a wonderful book.

M-W has it as closed for both the literal and figurative uses.

A note about dictionaries: Don't check them all you want. Know that when you submit something, the editors will notice the variations from the dictionary. The more they notice those things the less they think of your manuscript. Just a heads up.

[Medievalist]

Here you go (http://www.bartleby.com/61/52/B0545200.html). Bullshit is one word. This stuff, even obscenity, is in a good dictionary.

I'm a devoted fan of the American Heritage Dictionary, which is online in its entirety, free.

[Bufty]

Maybe, but there's no subtlety or doubt about the respective meanings of 'bullshit' or 'bull shit'.

Sometimes, a dictionary is like a doctor with bad bedside manners: too clinical to capture all the subtleties.

[Doug Johnson]

Maybe, but there's no subtlety or doubt about the respective meanings of 'bullshit' or 'bull shit'.

If that were true, someone couldn't have written an entire book - even a short one - On Bullshit.

To me, one word deemphasizes the shittinest of whatever it its. Treating someone shitty is not good, but if you "bull" them first, somehow that's not as bad.

[blacbird]

As an aside, "bullshit" might be the single most useful word in the English language. It should be employed more often.

(And, yes, I know what the response to this post will be.)

caw

[Samantha's_Song]

Not over here in jolly old England it isn't. Bollocks works much better :D

As an aside, "bullshit" might be the single most useful word in the English language. It should be employed more often.

(And, yes, I know what the response to this post will be.)

caw

[dpaterso]

Oddly enough, up here (somewhat north of England and over to the left) "mince" is used more often than bullshit or bollocks.

-Derek

[Samantha's_Song]

So what does 'mince' actually mean then? In France, it means skinny. :)

[dpaterso]

So what does 'mince' actually mean then? In France, it means skinny. :)
In France, many words mean something else. :)

Simply, mince = minced beef. Can refer to appearance (not exactly pleasant to look at) or thoughts & ideas (raw, uncooked, utterly disorganized).

"That's mince." = "How absurd!"

-Derek

[Samantha's_Song]

65% of the English language is derived from French.

So mince is a bit like the saying 'a bulldog chewing a wasp', or like Shugs, out of The colour purple, says 'My, you sure is ugly!' :D

In France, many words mean something else. :)

Simply, mince = minced beef. Can refer to appearance (not exactly pleasant to look at) or thoughts & ideas (raw, uncooked, utterly disorganized).

"That's mince." = "How absurd!"

-Derek

[dpaterso]

65% of the English language is derived from French.
Send that line to Al Murray, he'll squeeze an hour's stand-up comedy out of it. :)

So mince is a bit like the saying 'a bulldog chewing a wasp', or like Shugs, out of The colour purple, says 'My, you sure is ugly!' :D
Not sure about context -- I wouldn't say "You're mince!" any more than I would say "You're bullshit!" or "You're bollocks!" Examples: You're talking a load of mince! Did you see that new show on TV last night? It was mince! You paid what for that dress? That's mince! And by the way, it looks mince on you.

We have other words for personal insults, most of which may have French origin!

-Derek

[Samantha's_Song]

I don't know who Al Murray is I'm afraid, and if he'd rake the piss out of the French, I wouldn't want to know who he is, I am a Francophile through and through. :tongue
And most TV programmes are mince anyway :D But it's not a word I've ever heard used down here in Buckinghamshire, only for minced beef, lamb, or those yucky pies people eat at this time of year. :tongue

Send that line to Al Murray, he'll squeeze an hour's stand-up comedy out of it. :)


Not sure about context -- I wouldn't say "You're mince!" any more than I would say "You're bullshit!" or "You're bollocks!" Examples: You're talking a load of mince! Did you see that new show on TV last night? It was mince! You paid what for that dress? That's mince! And by the way, it looks mince on you.

We have other words for personal insults, most of which may have French origin!

-Derek

[Duncan J Macdonald]

65% of the English language is derived from French.


Another 86% is derived from German, 17% directly from Latin, 7% from Native American languages, and the remaining 30% comes from chasing other languauges down dark alleys and stealing words at knife-point.

Edited to Add: I was stationed with a Greek Naval Officer who was firmly convinced (and could expound for hours on the topic) that every word in every other languauge in the world is derived from Greek.

[Chase]

I was stationed with a Greek Naval Officer who was firmly convinced (and could expound for hours on the topic) that every word in every other languauge in the world is derived from Greek.

I knew that Greek officer! He stood watch a lot because he was never allowed shore leave where there might be decent women, due to certain preferences. Even more than the Russians I knew, Greeks did it or said it first.

However, the mince some of you know is not the mince I know. Especially at this holiday time, have you never heard of mincemeat pie?

It is made from the meat of the tasty mince. Man and boy I have hunted mince some fifty years. After all the smelly entrails are tossed, the bristly hide discarded, and mincemeat is cut away from the large mincebones, there is only enough spicy pie filling to put into a 12-inch pie crust. Mmmmm!

And that's no bull . . . um . . . well . . . you know.

[Don]

Another 86% is derived from German, 17% directly from Latin, 7% from Native American languages, and the remaining 30% comes from chasing other languauges down dark alleys and stealing words at knife-point.

Edited to Add: I was stationed with a Greek Naval Officer who was firmly convinced (and could expound for hours on the topic) that every word in every other languauge in the world is derived from Greek.
That Naval Officer apparently was the inspiration for the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

[Samantha's_Song]

Italian, French and Spanish etc., are all derivatives of Latin-based languages, are they not (Latin is Italian, isn't it). When I was teaching myself French, I could also understand very many of the Italian and Spanish written words too, just different sounding endings.

Another 86% is derived from German, 17% directly from Latin,

[Duncan J Macdonald]

Italian, French and Spanish etc., are all derivatives of Latin-based languages, are they not (Latin is Italian, isn't it). When I was teaching myself French, I could also understand very many of the Italian and Spanish written words too, just different sounding endings.


No, Latin is not Italian.

The romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian) are all based on Latin. Medievalist can go into far more detail than I can, but my gut feeling is that saying English is majority based on French is specious at best.

[blacbird]

65% of the English language is derived from French.


Don't think so, unless you are counting cognates that both languages took from older roots (Latin, some Germanic base, Greek, etc.). And it's useful to differentiate the grammatical structure of the language, conjugation of verbs, placement of modifiers, etc. from the individual words themselves.

caw

[Chase]

I believe this timely closed captioned photo of the word in actual use by an impeccable authority should settle the matter.

http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w355/chasenott/Santasays.jpg

[Carmy]

You got me, Chase. I expected the cation to be: "No, no, I said the Schmidt house!"

On language . . . Many Latin words were incorporated into P Celtic because some of the things the Romans introduced to Britain hadn't existed until they brought them in. For example, "window" -- fenestra (L) fenestr (Welsh or P Celtic).

So, what's the Greek word for window? Anyone?

[Samantha's_Song]

It was something I read on a website once, Canadian or American, when I was first teaching myself French. Makes no difference to me either way, I'll always think of French as the most beautiful language in the world.

P.S. I don't know where I got the percentage from, it was around 7 yrs ago when I was doing the French thing seriously... but I just lifted this up from the http://french.about.com/library/bl-frenchinenglish.htmAbout French site...

"More than a third of all English words are derived directly or indirectly from French, and it's estimated that English speakers who have never studied French already know 15,000 French words."

No, Latin is not Italian.

The romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian) are all based on Latin. Medievalist can go into far more detail than I can, but my gut feeling is that saying English is majority based on French is specious at best.

[Chase]

So, what's the Greek word for window? Anyone?

Anyone? Bueller? Chase?

Um . . . Couldn't be XP. How 'bout vista?


I don't know where I got the percentage from. . . .

C'est la vie, Sam. 87.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot, and despite the disclaimer over your avatar, this is the thread for it.

[Carmy]

Awright! Descending into sillyness now, caused by pre-Christmas libation.

Microsoft?

[Palmfrond]

παράθυρο is "window" in Greek (parathuro if you need help pronouncing Greek)

[Medievalist]

65% of the English language is derived from French.

Err, no, it's not.

People are mislead by cognates--words with common ancestors--but that is not derivation.

[Dawnstorm]

Err, no, it's not.

People are mislead by cognates--words with common ancestors--but that is not derivation.

So, how much, then, is derived from Latin and how much from French? My subjective, unsystematic experience is that whenever I stumble across an etymology note in the OED and I think Latin they say French. Etymology has never been my strong point.

[Carmy]

You're stumbling into the realm of ancient history now. The Roman Empire covered most of Europe and North Africa. They didn't just conquer and leave, they stayed for hundreds of years. Much of their language would have been incorporated in the countries they occupied and the origin of words would become blurred.

I don't know how old the French language is. Ancient Gaul (incorporating France) used Gallish, a Celtic language, and Bretons speak a form of P-Celtic that is easily understood by UK countries using Brythonic or P-Celtic. Finding the original French language could be difficult.

[Ciera_]

Um, sort of back on topic, I have a question.
So, we've ascertained that it's 'bullshit', but what about 'goddamnit' and 'goddamn'? that's how I spell those, just wondering if anyone else spells them differently.

[Carmy]

goddammit!

[Medievalist]

I don't know how old the French language is. Ancient Gaul (incorporating France) used Gallish, a Celtic language, and Bretons speak a form of P-Celtic that is easily understood by UK countries using Brythonic or P-Celtic. Finding the original French language could be difficult.

Err, no, not so much.

We have Old French; it's fairly common to learn to read it. We even have some Frankish, the Germanic language that forms one of the core sources of modern French (along with Latin, and Celtic languages).

We also have a fair amount of Gaulish, but it's all short bits, but again, if you do a few dead languages, and a couple dead Celtic languages it's fairly easy to learn how to puzzle out Gaulish.

What makes "French" tricky is that the dialects start being interesting; you have languages/dialects like Limousin and Provencal, the dialects used by the troubadour/trobaritz poets.

As to the actual percentages, I'd have to look it up, honestly. And my books are all in storage.

David Crystal and Albert C. Baugh both talk about it in their respective books on English. :D

The tricky part is that really we usually break it down to French from before 1500 and French after 1500; that is, the French used by the Anglo-Normans, settlers/invaders who came c. 1066 and whose language combined with Old English/Anglo-Saxon, the dominant language of England in 1066, with a bit of influence from Old Norse and Latin, and Celtic languages, ended up spawning Middle English.

If you like this sort of thing, I do blog about it; here's a related entry on the word Venison (http://wordaday.today.com/2008/11/09/venison/).

It is worth noting that the basic functional vocabulary of English--that is the words and grammar and syntax you need to know in order to satisfy basic requirements of every day life, are pretty much all words we retained from Old English/Anglo-Saxon. Short one syllable words, nouns and verbs, and then the little syntactic unit words like articles and pronouns.

[Medievalist]

Um, sort of back on topic, I have a question.
So, we've ascertained that it's 'bullshit', but what about 'goddamnit' and 'goddamn'? that's how I spell those, just wondering if anyone else spells them differently.

Here you go; the dictionary is again ready with an answer (http://www.bartleby.com/61/27/G0172700.html).