L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

I’m feeling better already

November 5, 2008 on 10:52 am | In General Musing, In the news |

I am so pleased that the Brits have devised a way to end disease. Bear with me.

In the news: Some local councils say using Latin is elitist and discriminatory, because some people might not understand it. This includes “etc.”, “via”, “versus”… etc. I mean, and so on. (BTW, “discriminatory” is of Latin origin and “elitist” is French.)

The French are great ones for pursuing language purity - a hopeless endeavor (oops, sorry, France, for stealing “endeavor”). But English?  If you tried ethnic cleansing on English, there’d be nothing left. I’ve always loved this quote:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow
words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
–James D. Nicoll

How does this policy eliminate disease? If you also count Greek as elitist and discriminatory (and how could they deny it?), between the two it would put an end to nearly all medical conditions. No more cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, trauma, asthma, hypertension…

But how do you tell the doc you’re feeling poorly? Pantomime? (Oops. Latin, via… I mean, by way of Greek.)

Interestingly, according to this study the top ten medical conditions (all Latin and Greek) cost the U.S.$500 billion per year. Hey, wait a minute. That means that in less than two years…

Somebody get me Wall Street!

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