[lit-ideas] Re: England good at "incorporating" immigrants
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:03:24 EDT
In a message dated 4/26/2011 4:45:34 P.M. , lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
Hitler called [the United States of America] a nation of mongrels and,
therefore, not up to facing the Wehrmacht in battle. Is Britain (England, et
al) on its own special road to becoming a nation of mongrels? And what of
Germany? Are the Turks ‘assimilating” or merely “incorporating.” The
implication of King’s words may be that the “mongrelization” process is much
further along in England than in Germany.
---
I wouldn't know what word Hitler used. Mongrel sounds like a bit of a
non-Anglo-Saxon term. One would think that Hitler was using a Germanic word for
'mongrel'. Of course it is different that a word _incorporates_ to a
language than a person to a nation. As someone said of 'borrowed words'.
"Borrowed? They never gave it back" ('Churchill on 'liberty'").
The German language is full of foreign words --. We have a few native
German speakers on this list that may testify to that fact. E.g. 'testify',
cognate with 'testicles' -- and turning 'SHE testified against me' an oxymoron.
Or not.
German for 'testify' refers to the body part but not by the Latinate.
Etc.
Daniel DeFoe has a big epic, "The Englishman" where he mocks 'the true
Englishman' as a chimaera. And so on. But then, "DeFoe" is a French surname. Or
not.
J. L. Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
