CDR: Re: Two items, of varying relevance to the list

[Tom Vogt]

Ken Brown wrote:
> But we're on the edge of a continent and we've absorbed more foreign
> words than *you* :-)  

I wasn't under that impression, so far.



> - and later on there seemed to be a similar sharing of words between
> English & Norse (& sometimes Dutch/Low German as well). So "ship",
> "skiff" and "skip"  (in the sense of a large container) all survive, but
> mean slightly different things. As do "shirt" and "skirt".

living in northern germany, I should add that low german (the local
dialect) is very similiar to english in some respects. even though I can
hardly speak it, I can immediatly think of a dozen or so words where the
english equivalent is closer than the (high) german one.

> - but most of all the sense that it is bad style to use the same word
> (except for little ones) more than once in a sentence. Does German do
> that?

yes, it is. maybe to a lesser degree, because you DO stay consistent
with the main topic, but it is generally considered bad style to be
repetitive without need, and german classes spend some time on the
topic, drawing up lists of words with similiar meanings that can be used
for variety. the most famous one is "speak", which has a LONG list of
similiar words in pretty much every language.