1066 continued
By the way, continuing yesterday's note, to make something sound more Latin or French, all you have to do is reverse the order and add in some articles and prepositions. Where we would refer to the United States Tariff Regulation Commission, in a Latin language it would be the Commission for the Regulation of Tariffs for the United States.
That last one sounds so bloated and awkward. But, used in moderation, the wordy reversal can sound perfectly grand where its Germanic cousin sounds blunt. Das Rheingold sounds fine in German, but The Rhine Gold wouldn't sound nearly as satisfying a title to us as, say, The Gold of the Rhine. Much better, eh?
As far as I can tell, that's a legacy of 1066. The classiest people were Normans, and so French words and constructions began to sound classier to us. This is why (Germanic) "underwear" sounds much more undignified than (French) "lingerie." Same with "smell" and "fragrance," or "food" and "cuisine."
Of course, the words that come straight from Latin sound classy to us in a different way: they sound more intellectual. But they also sound more stuffy, as opposed to their unsophisticated but powerful Germanic counterparts. You could say, "transform the multifarious oceans incarnadine," or you could say, "make the green sea red with blood." Two very different effects, there. One is perfect for a starchy orator, and one is perfect for a movie trailer. (Shakespeare, of course, played to the nobles and the commoners by using both phrases back to back.)
Think of how Winston Churchill stirred the hearts of his island nation: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..." Only one word there dates from after 1066: "surrender."
Songwriters have to have a good ear for these things. I think of the Sherman brothers, who wrote songs for the Disney musicals of the sixties. They were masters of the language. That's even evident in their nonsense syllables: the same guys who came up with the farcically hyperintellectual Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious turned around and treated us to the comically humble and somehow touching Chim Chim Cher-ee. Perfect! The Germanic and Latinate trends in our language, and all their effects on our minds and hearts, distilled into new words, nonsense words, that are instantly recognizable.
That last one sounds so bloated and awkward. But, used in moderation, the wordy reversal can sound perfectly grand where its Germanic cousin sounds blunt. Das Rheingold sounds fine in German, but The Rhine Gold wouldn't sound nearly as satisfying a title to us as, say, The Gold of the Rhine. Much better, eh?
As far as I can tell, that's a legacy of 1066. The classiest people were Normans, and so French words and constructions began to sound classier to us. This is why (Germanic) "underwear" sounds much more undignified than (French) "lingerie." Same with "smell" and "fragrance," or "food" and "cuisine."
Of course, the words that come straight from Latin sound classy to us in a different way: they sound more intellectual. But they also sound more stuffy, as opposed to their unsophisticated but powerful Germanic counterparts. You could say, "transform the multifarious oceans incarnadine," or you could say, "make the green sea red with blood." Two very different effects, there. One is perfect for a starchy orator, and one is perfect for a movie trailer. (Shakespeare, of course, played to the nobles and the commoners by using both phrases back to back.)
Think of how Winston Churchill stirred the hearts of his island nation: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..." Only one word there dates from after 1066: "surrender."
Songwriters have to have a good ear for these things. I think of the Sherman brothers, who wrote songs for the Disney musicals of the sixties. They were masters of the language. That's even evident in their nonsense syllables: the same guys who came up with the farcically hyperintellectual Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious turned around and treated us to the comically humble and somehow touching Chim Chim Cher-ee. Perfect! The Germanic and Latinate trends in our language, and all their effects on our minds and hearts, distilled into new words, nonsense words, that are instantly recognizable.
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