Dyson vacuums: really all that good?

[The Medway Handyman]

Because the French language is the linguistic equivalent to running a marathon with a broken leg?

[Andy Hall]

Possibly, but they do make good food.

[:Jerry:]

Whilst English is like running marathon not having a marked map with all the road names the same...

[The Natural Philosopher]

My friend says that all the problems and discussions in French philosophy would have never occurred if they had written in German..

I spent a merry half hour once messing the sizes of the text in an instruction manual, in various languages. English was the most compact.

German is good, but English beats it..'off switch' is smaller than 'the-button-on-the-top-that-disconnects-the-supply' etc etc.

Latin languages are needlessly verbose, German is needlessly detailed.

When I was in teh music buiness, I discovered that

'Kofferverstarker' means 'a power amplifier (built into) a box..

We just called em 'combos':-)

[The Medway Handyman]

I've never eaten a Frenchman - do they taste good? They used to say in Devon that cider was better if you added a dead Frenchman to the vat.

[Andy Hall]

Me neither

[Andy Hall]

I think that that's broadly true.

English is harder because there are at least two words for each thing - one latin, one german, possibly celtic.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Also, we can find several different ways of saying the same thing.

"The small lamb belonging to Mary" "Mary's little lamb"

[jkn]

[...]

and one Norman.

J