Is Portland over?

Actually, I should start the countdown to someone coming in and informing me that Don Quixote was written in English because they declare it to be so.

It’s no surprise we should have so many words. We have words that we lend to others. For example, not all languages needed an equivalent for, “Racist,” until us and other English speakers decided that racism might be a good concept. Most language equivalents to be found, such as the French raciste, use our base word.

Quote: Mission146

It’s no surprise we should have so many words. We have words that we lend to others. For example, not all languages needed an equivalent for, “Racist,” until us and other English speakers decided that racism might be a good concept. Most language equivalents to be found, such as the French raciste, use our base word.

A quick google search shows about 15 new words created each and every day. Think about it, we make words like "emoji" but does Mexico make their own equivalent? Or do they just take it as-is?

Quote: Wizard

I guess I stand corrected. Where is the good part of downtown to look?

There is no one place where the really good restaurants can be found, they're downtown, NE, NW, SE: I am posting a yelp link below.

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Restaurants&find_loc=portland%2C%20oregon

Look at their map next to "all results" to get an idea as to restaurant locations.

I'm not a true foodie and the restaurants listed in yelp are obviously not all inclusive or definitive as to which ones are best.

Quote: AZDuffman

A quick google search shows about 15 new words created each and every day. Think about it, we make words like "emoji" but does Mexico make their own equivalent? Or do they just take it as-is?

Yes. There's no display of our linguistic superiority like the word, "Emoji," you got me there.

Most if not all of us won't be alive when and if Spanish supplants English as the predominant language in the USA, and I'm sure any change will be gradual, with all Americans having plenty of time to become bilingual if they so choose.

In other words, much ado about nothing.

Quote: Mission146

Yes. There's no display of our linguistic superiority like the word, "Emoji," you got me there.

Emoji is a word we adopted from Japan. I am guessing the rest of the world adopted it too.

I think Spanish has "sadness" covered.


I am not convinced that word count is relevant to the expressiveness of a language. English has more words than Latin languages because it is a Germanic language that absorbed a large number of words of Latin origin. For example our words for livestock are Germanic, but we have Latin based words for the meat of those animals. There is no reason we could not say cow meat instead of beef. We don't need a separate word for fish meat.

Quote: Mission146

Spanish is so limiting!
.

In fact it's extremely limiting. I remember when I lived in California I was trying to speak Spanish because I had so many customers from Mexico and I kept running into the same problem. I would hear a word meant something and I would say but I thought it meant this. And they would say yeah, it means that to, it also means this in this in this. In English we have separate words for all those things but not in Spanish.

Quote: JimRockford

Emoji is a word we adopted from Japan. I am guessing the rest of the world adopted it too.

I think Spanish has "sadness" covered.


I am not convinced that word count is relevant to the expressiveness of a language. English has more words than Latin languages because it is a Germanic language that absorbed a large number of words of Latin origin. For example our words for livestock are Germanic, but we have Latin based words for the meat of those animals. There is no reason we could not say cow meat instead of beef. We don't need a separate word for fish meat.

Ha! Thanks for the post. It was such a ridiculous word (emoji) to cite as an example that I didn't bother even looking into the etymology.

Quote: Evenbob

In fact it's extremely limiting. I remember when I lived in California I was trying to speak Spanish because I had so many customers from Mexico and I kept running into the same problem. I would hear a word meant something and I would say but I thought it meant this. And they would say yeah, it means that to, it also means this in this in this. In English we have separate words for all those things but not in Spanish.

Having to use context to determine the meaning of a word can be tough for some people in any language.

Tougher, I imagine, when it's not your first language.

Spanish works just fine in Spain, and they're a first world country as sophisticated as most European countries..

To argue that Spanish is somehow inferior to English is irrelevant to the issue at hand: who cares?

When / if the time comes that Spanish supplants English as the main language in the USA it will happen because the bulk of Americans are then speaking Spanish and not English.