Garrottes, Guerillas, and unsuitable languages

[Sin Studly]

I just realised that the english language uses the term "garotte" for a thin wire you use to murder people with. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the word "garotte" comes from the French ; the most callow and spineless bunch of surrender-artists ever shat onto western civilisation. Why is this? I mean, I guess it's kind of fitting, since the garrotte forces you to come from behind ; and is a weapon for murdering somebody weaker than you (ie; Algeria) rather than a weapon for combat. But why would anything that's got to do with killing people rather than surrendering to them be named by the frogs?

Sabotage, another French bastardisation. But this one makes a little sense. Sabot = boot, it was a term that literally meant kicking German machinary with your boot to fuck up the war effort. It was pretty much the backbone of the French resistance, and they lavish themselves with praise over it. They consider themselves the most heroic nation in the war because some of them kicked the fanbelts of assembally lines while Herr Müller snuck out of the factory floor to smoke a cigarette. I mean, the Finns fought the Soviets and Nazi Germany. The British refused to give up even as their shipping lines were cut off, the Luftwaffe were pounding them senseless and none of their allies were willing to help them. The Russians went scorched earth, burned out their foodstores and died by the hundreds of thousands to stop the German invasion. And the heroic French kicked....some.... machines.

So, that makes sense, but Sabot? It's a term used in English for some full-on military shit, namely "A sabot refers to a device named for a shoe used in a firearm or cannon to fire a projectile or bullet that is smaller than the bore diameter". Right, I have no fucking clue what that means, except maybe that a sabot is padding to let big guns fire little bullets. That's my best guess. But why is that word taken from the French? What the hell do the French know about firing any size bullets?

And Guerillas? Why on earth have we taken the word Guerillas from the French? I mean ; please tell me I'm wrong, please tell me it comes from Italian or Spanish? And if it does come from the French, please tell me it was coined by them when they were referring to the slanteyed gooks or ragheaded arabs who kicked their colonial frog arses out of their colonies?

Now, firing blanks. I'm assuming that 'blank' came from the French word for 'white'. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. It does make sense for the the French colour of warfare to represent firing cartridges with no actual bullets in them.

Anyways, when I made this thread I just wanted to ask what people from other languages call garottes. Now I want you to point out any assimilated foreign words from totally unsuitable languages.

[Rocky-girl]

Nothing. We haven't such word here. I mean word with same pronunciation or written like this. We have many foreign words here from French, English, German. Many of them came in our language recently.
As for me I don't like that there are too little letters in English and because of it there are many words that are written likely but have different meanings.
And what language do you call unsuitable?

[HeadAroundU]

interesting :cool:

[wheelchairman]

What you are going to like is that guerilla is derived from Spanish, meaning little war.

What you are not going to like is that they used it to describe the way in which they resisted the occupational regime of Napoleon Bonaparte.

[Preocupado]

From what i read some years ago the sabotage wasan't about kicking the machinery, but actually shoving that sturdy sabot shoe inside the machinery and letting the machine break from the inside out.

[Sin Studly]

Figures, I guess the French were too cowardly to even risk hurting their delicate feet.

[wheelchairman]

According to Wiki. Sabotage originates from worker's protests, not french resistance in WW2. So it's all good. It's the worker's defending themselves and being destructive.

[Sin Studly]

I made it abundantly clear I had no clue what I was talking about, you didn't have to bring wiki into it.

But you still haven't touched on just why words concerning warfare and destruction and resisting are taken from the French?

[wheelchairman]

Yeah I don't know either. :(

I would assume like you it's from the Vietnam and Algerian colonial wars. Describing the other side.

[belen1979]

What you are going to like is that guerilla is derived from Spanish, meaning little war.

What you are not going to like is that they used it to describe the way in which they resisted the occupational regime of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Wow, I had just leaned that!!! I didn't know that we used that kind of war (guerra de guerrillas) against Napoleon Bonaparte... (History has always been too bored in school... I must had paid more atention...)

Btw, I always thought in Chile or Mexico when I heard "guerrilla".

*Going to read more history books...* =(

[Duskygrin]

Hey idiot, yeah I'm talking to the idiot who made that thread, hey you, mister no-clue, garotte comes from Spanish, VIA French only. It was used by the Spanish inquisition. They used a tightened collar, & we have improved the method by transposing the killing using a thin wire, coming on tiptoe & murdering in a trice, very suitable for burglaries & such.

And, as you seem -disingenuously- unaware of, ppl actually died in sabotage operations.

And these words come from the French because we implemented them, obviously.

[Rocky-girl]

But you still haven't touched on just why words concerning warfare and destruction and resisting are taken from the French?
Not only that word were taking from French. There are many French words in English. And I think it's because of Anglosaxon country(?).

[Duskygrin]

It's because French rules, because of the Norman invasion, & because in the 19th C it was the dominant language, the tongue par excellence.

[Rocky-girl]

Yes, but in that time English language has been already formed. And I think I wrongly get the question. The reason why lies deeply in history.

[Duskygrin]

During the Norman invasion, I'm very sorry to have to disagree with you, but it seems to me the English language was far from being formed.

In the 18th & 19th C, though, it was indubitably mature, but such words as ennui, blasé, passé, fiancé, rendez-vous, etc were added. Innumerable French additions came to be used in polite society.

As to why terms appertaining to war craft come from the French, why, merely because, contrary to his views, the French language is highly suitable for these.

And sabotage didn't solely consist, as he seems to imply, nay, as he explicitly contends, in "kicking some machines". Firstly it dates back to the industrial age, when workers actually destroyed the machinery (originally looms) by throwing, not kicking, but throwing their "sabots" on them. Later on, in World War Two, it came to be a vital part of the French Resistance (at times the peril was so great that the saboteurs knew they were signing their death warrants), & as Dwight D. Eisenhower put it:"Throughout France the Resistance had been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their great assistance the liberation of France would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses to ourselves."
Bear in mind that sabotage was a crime, & if you didn't die during the operation, your life remained endangered long after.

[T-6005]

This is a stupid argument to get into.

[Duskygrin]

That was a stupid argument to start in the first place, & the author of this unhappy thread was wrong from beginning to end. Or nearly.

[Sin Studly]

Yep, lots of French words in English because they belong there. Bordello, burlesque, courtesan.

Go have more sex for money, Maria.

[Duskygrin]

You deserve to be slapped in the face. And it's bordel.

And I'd rather work at the Moulin Rouge or the Crazy Horse Saloon (amongst other things, Paris is famous for that, isn't it?) than be an oaf like you.

And thanks for this ad-hominem -but you're in the wrong though- whose only reason for standing here, faintly ridiculous, is because you're in such an awe of France that you have to resort to the lowest means.

[Sin Studly]

Hey Maria, you're an ex-prostitute.

[Duskygrin]

You're an idiot. And no, I am not. But if you want me to be, then it's okay, nobody's gonna contradict you, let alone me. You know I never contradict you when you say that.

[Sin Studly]

That's because you're an ex-prostitute.

[Duskygrin]

That's because you don't mind entertaining that notion, it fills up the leisure time which you have aplenty.

[Sin Studly]

You're an ex-prostitute, Maria.

[Duskygrin]

*shrugs* what if I were? Edith Piaf was a prost. She's like, the one most respected French singer.

I'm a student, with good credentials, but unlike you, I respect prostitutes, & I actually had some friends who did jobs that were kinda borderline. And they were more respectable than you. So even if I were, that would be my business, not yours, & I wouldn't advertise it on offspring.com.

Why do you keep repeating that, though? That's beyond me.

[Sin Studly]

Hey Maria, you're an ex-prostitute.

[Lithuanian Offspring]

It's because French rules, because of the Norman invasion, & because in the 19th C it was the dominant language, the tongue par excellence.
Bullshit! French sounds like a whino's slurred words of stupidity.

[Duskygrin]

And what do you think you just sounded like?

[Lithuanian Offspring]

Probably like an ignorant french twat? Is that what you are trying to say?

[Duskygrin]

Ah, you did sound like an ignorant twat, though hardly French at all. No French person can pronounce that murderous, jaw-breaking phrase "whino's slurred words of stupidity".

So we don't think it. We don't (or seldom) think what we cannot pronounce. Weird, huh?

[Not Ozymandias]

http://www.csulb.edu/~rjames/classic/1144302291193.png

[Sin Studly]

Ah, you did sound like an ignorant twat, though hardly French at all. No French person can pronounce that murderous, jaw-breaking phrase "whino's slurred words of stupidity".

So we don't think it. We don't (or seldom) think what we cannot pronounce. Weird, huh?

You're an ex-prostitute, Maria.

[Rocky-girl]

Maria, can't you see that you must be wiser and stop this stupid argument?