Using foreign words in domestic language

[Michel Merlin]

Using foreign words in domestic language
(incidental OT)

In the Open Adblock Plus forums category, this Acceptable Ads discussion sub-category is sub-titled "This is the place to discuss issues with the acceptable ads list like a website no longer complying with the criteria."

1. This could be, more logically IMO, written "complying with the criteriums", thus according and articulating the foreign (latin) word as required in its host language (English), as mathematicians, grammarians, and educated people used to write formerly.

2. Or at least write it "complying with criteriis", if willing, against logic, efficiency (and politeness toward eventual less instructed readers), to articulate it in its original foreign language (which not only breaks the host phrase but also requires all millions readers or writers to know all the declensions, accords, articles and other articulations in all the foreign languages eventually used). If ever someone really wants this, please at least remember the rules and make it as properly as possible:

• "with", translated into Latin, implies ablative, as recalled in Latin declension - Meanings and functions of the various cases
• Criterium ablative plural is Criteriis
• the latin word, using its declension, integrates its articulation in the phrase; here, "criteriis" (when following "cum") already means "the criteriums", so writing "with the criteria", once corrected the wrong declension case, can't mean anything else than "with the the criteriums" (i.e. with pleonasmic repetition of "the").

3. If someone really wants to look pedantic, they could also write "obediens criteriis" (obedio governs dative or ablative), but then why not write the phrase (or the forum while you are at it) entirely in Latin?

Versailles, Sun 29 Nov 2015 19:04:00 +0100

[lewisje]

Because English lacks declensions for nouns from the nominative case (except the genitive, which is invariably regular, by means of a clitic), the form that is usually borrowed into English is in the nominative case ("criterium" was once used in English, but this French-influenced form was abandoned in favor of that Latin nominative which was closest to the Ancient Greek "κριτήριον"/"kritérion"), and case distinctions from the donor language are ignored; usually, the other inflections come to follow the English pattern, but the original plurals often remain as marks of sophistication that frequently lead to hyperforeignisms (like the well-known yet incorrect plurals of "penis" and "octopus" and "virus").

Also, usually the singular form is the primary one, while words like "criteria" and "data" and "media" are rare exceptions, although "medium" is often used in contexts distinct from "media"; if "criterion" were borrowed normally, the plural in English would slowly become "criterions," but instead, the term "criteria" is likely to be used as a singular noun (cf. "opera" losing its link to "opus" in English), with "criterias" as its plural (again, like "operas").

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Going forward, declensions will continue to be de-emphasized even among the pronouns (in favor of the accusative rather than the nominative), and word order will become more important than ever; I expect that eventually, although well after I die (I turned 31 yesterday), the title Me Talk Pretty One Day will become standard English, in much the same way that "ye" was driven out by its accusative form, "you."