RE: Musings on the Oxymoron of the "Only Choice"
Great example of how weird English can get. I love exploring the vagaries of language and how different languages can affect how people perceive their environments.
English has evolved so powerfully over the centuries in part because it allows this kind of delightful weirdness you've shone a light on today. I've found it gives it advantages over more structured languages like French, which doesn't typically allow that sort of contradiction, and I suspect most other languages are more rigid in how they cope with the abstract. Perhaps those are cheats rather than advantages - said from the perspective of someone who used to do technical translation and was forever frustrated by English writers' ability to be hyper-unspecific about something which required a specific description in French. I can only imagine what an English to German translator would have done with some of those texts!
One of the French words which came to mind thanks to "only choice" was "alternative" - in English we can have multiple alternatives, but in French it's only a choice between two possibilities (not the only choice 🙃). As the Church Lady used to say on Saturday Night Live, "Well, isn't that special!"
Have you read any of Steven Pinker's stuff on English, or listened to any of his talks? If you enjoyed the exoticism of "only choice", I suspect you'll enjoy his material.
English is bonkers, at school they never bothered with grammar because the language is so flexible it really doesn't matter.
I suspect the only reason I have any feel for English grammar (and it's nothing to boast about) is because of the years we spent studying French grammar. Similar patterns lurk in English sentences, but they hide in the mists of exceptions to rules of conjugation and pronunciation and strange hierarchies of words. French has rules, and by golly, you stick to them, while English is a glorious jumble of contradictions and exceptions to everything that just somehow works.
Right, I have often found people from countries with a Latin language base have a much deeper understanding of grammar and syntax. On the one hand I expect this helps them with the process of learning other languages, on the other hand English must feel like a disaster zone :)
Indeed! Disaster zone - lol 😂
You mean "un alternatif"? Mais ils peux avoir plusieur alternatifs, non? I don't spell perfect French, never liked the so many rules, COD, conjugation, and the and other things. English was intuitively learned by doing (write/speak) and reading. I'll check out Pinker, thanks for the recommendation and feedback.
Now that's an interesting question. I had to look it up to make sure, but if my dictionary's correct, alternatif is an adjective, not a noun and it means alternating, as in courant alternatif (the AC kind of electricity). There's a second definition which touches on the original discussion: it can mean alternative, in the sense of different. Our translation professor was most strict on us Anglos not using alternative in the English sense - we had months and months on how to avoid anglicisms. Fascinating stuff.
And yes, English does let you learn intuitively. Good old COD! Haven't heard of him for years, but didn't even have to look it up when I saw it - shudder.
Enjoy Pinker.
Ah yes my bad, I didn't even check the dictionary lol. I am prone to anglicism and turning english words into french. It works so well and Quebecer French has quite a few english words in there colloquially.
You're right - I wasn't aware of it or sensitive to it until I started studying translation. Quebec French used to be pretty accepting of this...unless the Office de la Langue Française has grown even sharper teeth...yikes....