Re: The Seven Types Of Pirate

From: "Barry" 
> I don't think I had that distinction clearly in mind when I made my comments so that wasn't stated.
>
>With respect to mass piracy, buying a book and uploading it to a torrent site or downloading a book from a torrent site instead of buying a copy, I think we can all agree that it's a no-no.  It's cheating.

thank you for the clarification Barry. That makes much of what I wrote redundant.

<snip>

>
>The fact is, though, that most of the e-books most of us want most of the time are encrypted so it's of little consequence that the majority of e-books are not. 

I did answer this. 'Want' is not the same as 'right'. Again I think the major problem is with those who offer libraries for their expensive devices. 

>
>
> I remember elementary and high school teachers telling me that the English language was mostly derived from Latin.  Many years later I learned that, while it's true that most words in the dictionary, which includes huge numbers of medical, scientific and legal terms, are from Latin, the vast majority of the words we use in conversation and in most of the books we read most of the time, are Germanic in origin. 
>
> So English is a Germanic language.  And e-books have DRM.
<snip>
>Barry

Not really. While Old High German is a fair ingredient of English via Anglo-Saxon settlers in England, Latin comes not only directly from teh Roman occupation of England, but also through the Norman French of Willian the Conqueror. Ther was also through that time the strong imposition of the Roman Catholic religions, which continued to latinise English.

Norman French, and its slow blend with Anglo-Saxon and some Celtic developed in to the upper class language. The raw Anglo-Saxon became the language of the rude (untutored) peasants - the indigenous English. Everyone wants to be upper class which is why raw Anglo-Saxon today became the 'outre' language, and is rude, vulgar or abusive and mostly understood to be swearing. 

It should also be realised that Latin had a further important influence through the Norman property laws - possibly one of the worst developments! And, just to complicate it further, many 'latin' words are actually Greek!

But it is important to realise that the mix of languages in English is considerable, and English absorbs 'foreign' words all the time. Greek, Classical Hebrew, Indian languages are among some of the important minor contributors. Perhaps most importantly (and thank goodness) English has virtually no truck with the German rules of grammar.

Because of the complexity  it is correct that English is an Indo-European language, but I would certainly not think of it as Germanic. 

One of the best ways of sorting the etymology of individual words is to use the online dictionary of the Oxford English Dictionary. There is some free part for all, and there may be access through your local library.

Joseph

Joseph Harris is Smile Poet
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