Order of evaluting functions ?

[August Karlstrom]

Aren't all those things components of speaking (and writing) English?
I would hazard that I learned most of those things in "English" class.

Yes, but most of the things I bitched about are not specific to the
English language. I learned it in "Swedish" class.


August

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Yes, but most of the things I bitched about are not specific to the
English language. I learned it in "Swedish" class.


August

Really? They taught you to say "you" instead of "u" in Swedish class?

 

[Jordan Abel]

Yes, but most of the things I bitched about are not specific to
the English language. I learned it in "Swedish" class.

Spelling "I" with a capital letter is. It's not done in, for
example, Spanish, or French. Capitalization rules are slippery
things. German, IIRC, capitalizes all nouns (but not pronouns?).
Some languages capitalize the names of months, others don't.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Capitalization for a good overview
other than the pronoun issue.

As far as the "I" pronoun goes, English is the only one that I knew
of until today that capitalized it - what I can find online says
Swedish does as well.

And the spelling of the "you" pronoun is _clearly_ a language
specific thing. Most notably, it is in fact spelled "U" (but
capitalized) in Dutch [Again, based on limited online sources]

 

[Skarmander]

Jordan Abel wrote:

Spelling "I" with a capital letter is. It's not done in, for
example, Spanish, or French. Capitalization rules are slippery
things. German, IIRC, capitalizes all nouns (but not pronouns?).

Correct except for "Sie", as mentioned below.

And the spelling of the "you" pronoun is _clearly_ a language
specific thing. Most notably, it is in fact spelled "U" (but
capitalized) in Dutch [Again, based on limited online sources]

As a native speaker, let me clear that one up for you, even if you
couldn't care less : "u" (not pronounced like "you", incidentally) is
the formal way of addressing, both singular and plural. It is not
typically capitalized, unless referring to God (in the same way some may
use "He" in English). Some still insist on writing all instances of "u"
capitalized, in the same way German uses capitalized "Sie" (also the
formal pronoun), but this is a minority.

The common form of addressing, used when formality is not required, is
"jij" or "je" for singular ("gij" or "ge" in Flemish, which in Dutch is
equivalent to "thou") and "jullie" for plural. In a newsgroup, you would
expect to see the informal versions, regardless of who is adressing who.

In any case, ignoring the broader issue of capitalization being
language-specific, this all bears no relationship to "u" versus "you" in
English -- except of course that Dutch and English are related and there
is some overlap in the origins of the pronouns.

S.

 

[August Karlstrom]

Really? They taught you to say "you" instead of "u" in Swedish class?

Sigh... I think you get my point.


August

 

[Coos Haak]

Op Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:26:03 +0000 (UTC) schreef Jordan Abel:

And the spelling of the "you" pronoun is _clearly_ a language
specific thing. Most notably, it is in fact spelled "U" (but
capitalized) in Dutch [Again, based on limited online sources]

Since the 1950's the word "u" in Dutch is not capitalized anymore, along
with the names of the months and days of the week.
The use of "u" has declined since then, it's mostly "jij" and "jou"
(familiar) these days.
I rather not tell about the new spelling rules, they change them every 20
years or so, the last one is a month old ;-(

Coos

 

[Michael Wojcik]

Spelling "I" with a capital letter is. It's not done in, for
example, Spanish, or French. Capitalization rules are slippery
things....

And the spelling of the "you" pronoun is _clearly_ a language
specific thing.

August's general point, if I understand it, was that it usually
serves a writer well to adopt the dominant conventions of the
intended audience. And that is entirely independent of the language
being used, English or otherwise.