Hi, Mark!  Awhile ago you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
    AH>  I can also see that if we're talking about having the   
    AH>  Browns for dinner we may need to make it clear we don't   
    AH>  plan to eat them.  :-)   
      
    ml>  "Respectfully submitted for your perusal - a Kanamit.   
    ml>  Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the   
    ml>  neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin:   
    ml>  unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a   
    ml>  moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively,   
    ml>  with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another   
    ml>  time. This is the Twilight Zone." - /To Serve Man/   
      
      
              Thereby hangs a tale indeed.  When Columbus landed in North   
   America, or so historians now tell us, many of the natives headed for the   
   hills... while many of the others were either taken to Europe as slaves or   
   expected to produce gold in larger quantities than they could supply.  Sooner   
   or later he'd have to admit he hadn't found India or China... but he needed to   
   persuade his financial backers he'd found something equally profitable.  I   
   wonder what a Kanamit might want from me, and I think it unlikely I could   
   outrun him or her....  :-))   
      
      
      
    ml>  i used to speak Turkish (1st) and Japanese (2nd) but   
    ml>  haven't since i was maybe 5 years old...   
      
      
              An interesting combination!  I studied French & Latin in high school   
   ... and I'm glad I did... but I'm also out of practice now.  :-)   
      
      
      
    AH>  As a Canadian, OTOH, I see many things written in both   
    AH>  English & French where the French version occupies more   
    AH>  bandwidth because the words are often longer & there are   
    AH>  more of them....  ;-)   
      
    ml>  true... german is similar as well in that they put words   
    ml>  together to make a new one... at least, that's the way i   
    ml>  understand some of what i've seen and how it has translated...   
      
      
              Yes, that's my understanding.  I have a knife made in Germany,   
   e.g., which has the word "rostfrei" on the blade.  I'd interpret this word as   
   meaning literally "rust free" because the knife is clearly made of stainless   
   steel.  In English we often put nouns together like freight cars too.    
   However, we tend to keep the spaces between them rather than treating them as   
   one long word.   
      
              WRT French... there was a popular song years ago called "La Plume   
   de Ma Tante" which demonstrates what I had in mind.  Translation": My Aunt's   
   Pen". Then there's the word "amplificateur", which means "amplifier"....  :-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  ... and then you get things like...   
      
    ml>  i'm going to unthaw some chicken for dinner.   
    ml>  hurry and finish washing up the dishes.   
      
    ml>  and similar... "unthaw" is the wrong word... should   
    ML>  be "thaw" or "unfreeze"...   
      
      
              Uh-huh.  I see "the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue"   
   there as well.  Whether GBS said it in exactly those words or whether some   
   perceptive Americans added it to a musical version of his PYGMALION, I can   
   relate....  :-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  "up" is not needed in the second one at all... can you   
    ml>  "wash down", too? ;)   
      
      
              Good question.  While I've heard folks from England say "washing   
   up" in reference to dishes, they don't specify dishes.  I reckon they say this   
   only when they're washing dishes & they'd say "I'm going to wash the car" just   
   as we would... it's not like dressing up or dressing down to suit the occasion.   
      
              Oral speech tends to be rather wordy on occasions when we must   
   think on our feet... and most people understand & accept that what they're   
   hearing is the best we can do on the spur of the moment.  OTOH, I think UK   
   English is more efficient than North American English at times.  The Browns   
   may be invited *to* tea, e.g., but in this context "tea" = a light meal as   
   well as a beverage.  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)