Original question by @Justathroughdaway@lemmy.world

I like to lean about words from around the world and use them in my speech. I have a particular love for British words. I just love words like spiv, nod, wasteman, barmy, slapper, bruv, shafted, nonce, junkie, bint, smackhead, slag, breve, chav, squiffy, slaphead, dosh, shafted

  • aramis87@fedia.io
    211·
    2 days ago

    I speak English. And, as James Nicoll said,

    The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

    I speak some Spanish and some Dutch, but I don’t know if I borrow many words from them that aren’t “normal” borrow-words.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        7·
        1 day ago

        That’s a weird take when it’s not a Celtic language. It’s Germanic (with heavy Romantic old French influence), so you should really be talking about runes or something.

        Latin letters are a terrible fit, though, you’re absolutely right about that. It gives you 4 vowels to work with and my spoken dialect has 17.