Is English A Sexy Language?

It's a pity that Latin as a day to day Language has gone the way of the dodo....but it still lives on in many ways......living creatures such as birds are still identified by their Latin names.

Many people here in the UK recently were amused when they discovered the Latin name for the American Robin.....a very common bird in North America but extremely rare here in the UK - it has only ever been recorded seven times here. One such occasion was last week when an American Robin (much larger than, completely unrelated to and totally unlike the European robin) was seen on a tree in a garden close to Central London!

The American Robin has the Latin name Turdus Migratorius. The Migratorius bit is understandable....this one certainly did migrate a wee bit further than normal.....right across a huge ocean in this case. The Turdus bit is the bit that caused some amusement.....maybe it leaves a lot of calling cards behind it.

Without Latin the linguistics of the world would have been unrecognisibly different from what they are now. Of course Latin is romantic...the very first words of Latin we ever learn are amo, amas, amat, are they not? What word can be more romantic than "amo"? The derivatives of Latin
we see (or rather hear) in the world today are similary romantic, hence the name.

> Of course Latin is romantic...the very first words of Latin we ever learn are amo, amas, amat, are they not? What word can be more romantic than "amo"? The derivatives of Latin
we see (or rather hear) in the world today are similary romantic, hence the name.

I think it all depends on context. I never learned Latin but I did learn Spanish and "amo" means "boss" or "master" in Spanish, so it doesn't sound at all romantic to me. If one said "liefde" it would have a different effect on me.

Turdus, as in Turdus migratorius, is or is derived from the Latin for thrush, as the American robbin is a member of the thrush genus. It is called a robbin simply because it has a red breast, not because it is related to the European robbin.

True yes, Latin was a very pretty element to it, with names for flowers etc. It most deffinatly requires the right kind of accent, or intination to become sexy though something priests and academics find hard ;). Its like when del boy speaks french, not at all romantic.

Adam wrote:
"However, the French like to act as though they were the first to get rid of their Monarchy, even though the English replaced their Absolute Monarchy for a Constitutional Monarchy 140 years before France became a Republic. "

Well, but you still can't beat Denmark. They were ruled by a small dog in the Dark Ages!

BTW Danish is extremely sexy...

<<Well, but you still can't beat Denmark. They were ruled by a small dog in the Dark Ages!>>

Can you tell us a bit more about that, Fredrik? Sounds intriguing!

Well, if you insist. Here is the dubious story according to the Mediavel Chronicle of the Kings of Lejre, a work characterized by an intense hatred of all things German.

The story begins with Denmark being in need of a king, because King Helge had "fled eastwards" and committed suicide there, out of shame of unknowingly having sex with his own daughter....

"Then King Hakon of Sweden sent the Danes a small dog for a king, with the warning that whoever was the first to say that it was dead would lose their life. One day as Dog sat at table, and the hounds were scrapping on the floor, he sprang from the table and they tore him to death. And no one dared tell King Hakon that. Then the giant Læ of Læsø told his herdsman Snio to get himself to the kingdom from King Hakon. So king Hakon asked Snio the news. Snio answered, "The bees are all dazed in Denmark."

Then King Hakon said, "Where did you sleep the night?"
Snio answered the king, "There where the sheep ate the wolves."
"How so?"
"Because the wolf was boiled and given to the sheep to drink as a cure."
"Where did you sleep the next night?"
"Where the wolf ate the cart and the horses ran off."
"How could that be?"
"Because the wolves ate the beaver-thrall, who had the wood between his legs; and the beavers who drew him, they ran away."
"Where did you sleep the third night?" said the king.
Snio answered, "Where the mice ate the axe but not the haft."
"How so?"
"Because children made an axe of white cheese. The mice ate that, but not the stick the haft was made of."
Then the king asked about the news.
Then Snio answered, "The bees are all dazed."
"Then Dog is dead!"

"You said it, not me," said Snio, and so he was king in Denmark - a twisted and excessively harsh judge, vicious too, who acquired goods by dishonest means, and he oppressed everyone very much."

The Chronicles of the Kings of Lejre:
http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/lejre.html

"The American Robin has the Latin name Turdus Migratorius"

Hilarious. Turdus Migratorius is like the sort of name you would give to a flying piece of faeces.

"Well, but you still can't beat Denmark."

We we can. English King Harold's army destroyed Danish King's Harald Hardrada's in the North of England.

"Sami is so sexy.... "

I know she is.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he the last Anglo-Saxon king of England who was famously killed by an arrow in the eye at the Battle of Hastings while trying to repel the Norman invasion under William the Conqueror. A real great role model.............

<<"Sami is so sexy.... "

I know she is.>>

No, dingbat-- I mean, Adam -- Sami is Lapplander.

And speaking of flying pieces of feces....

haapygolucky:
No, that was King Harold II Godwinson who was killed at Hastings.

Adam:
King Harald Hardråde, who was defeated and killed by Harald Godwinson's forces at Stamford Bridge in 1066, was Norwegian, not Danish!
(Just so that nobody can call me a Norwegian chauvinist! And by the way we are rather happy you guys killed him, he was not called
"Harald Hard-Rule" for nothing!)

The greenock accent is the best, werever av been aww eh girls luv it.

Stamford Bridge (where we beat the Vikings because they were sat on their arses eating magic mushrooms), not too far away from me. It might have been better if the Vikings had won, at least we allready had experience of Dane rule, not such a bad rule either. Maybe there would have been more chance of an actual English king coming back rather than the French, German, Scottish, Dutch ones we've had ever since. Oh and the first democracy of sorts was in Iceland i found out today, amazing! Vikings, not such bad fellas after all!