Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith

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Language Influences Thought

...in these 5 examples.

However, a crucial counterpoint is that English makes it easy to NOT lay blame, with the passive exonerative ("Mistakes were made.")  English is a popular business langauge, partly because of that passive exonerative: many other languages require  specifying who or what caused something (bad or good) to happen.
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Russian has a kazillion variants for its verbs, but they all mean slightly different things -- they're not quite synonyms. English started as a Germanic language, then piled on large amounts of Latin and French, then threw in some Norse, then grabbed bits of everything it ever rubbed against. So there are whole sets of exact synonyms, and they're often paired, like "aid and abet."

  • Photographs

    I took some pictures of my yard today. Read about what makes a good wildlife yard and Fieldhaven as habitat. The larger brush pile is still…

  • Birdfeeding

    Today is partly sunny and delightfully mild. I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of house finches and a few sparrows. I walked around the yard…

  • Fieldhaven as Habitat

    If you follow my posts on gardening, birdfeeding, and photos, then you know that I garden for wildlife. Looking at the YardMap parameters, here…