"The more, the better" = DE "je mehr, um so besser"; SV "ju mer, desto bättre".

Post #442,278 by CRConrad 11/14/22 9:47:38 AM 11/14/22 9:47:38 AM Reply	"The more, the better" = DE "je mehr, um so besser"; SV "ju mer, desto bättre". That "je" and "ju" are closely related seems obvious, but "um so" (= EN "about" or "around"; "so" or "then")? And "desto"? Looks kind'a Latinate / Italianish to me, but fuck knows. And WTF kind of words are "je" and "ju"? Oh yeah, and FI: "Mikä enemmän, mikä paremmin" = "What more, what better". Or perhaps "what more, that better". None of the words look like articles in any of those languages. Conjunctions, subjunctions, pronouns... Is there a term "prepositions" in English? Some of them look like what I'd call a preposition (N.B: not a proposition) in Swedish. But don't ask me about any of this shit. -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #442,279 by drook 11/14/22 10:52:08 AM 11/14/22 10:52:08 AM Reply	Yes, we have prepositions But, English being English, parts of speech are descriptive, not prescriptive. I suspect maybe 10% of native speakers could tell you "the" is an article, fewer than that could tell you that it is also an adjective or an adverb, depending on what it is identifying, and almost none would come up with the "the more the merrier" formulation as a completely different thing. In the original "when more then merrier" formulation, "when" and "then" would be adverbs, though for a completely different reason. -- Drew
Post #442,289 by scoenye 11/14/22 10:51:44 PM 11/14/22 10:51:44 PM Reply	NL = hoe meer, hoe beter. "Hoe" -> "how" There is also a variant used with more complete sentences: "Hoe ouder ik word, des te sneller de tijd lijkt te gaan." -> "The older I get, the faster the time seems to go." Looks like "desto" may be a contraction. "des" is a genitive. It has been on the phase-out track since the Middle Ages (tenacious little bugger...) The current meaning corresponds roughly to "of the" (e.g. "de procureur des Konings" - "the prosecutor of the King", so the use above is pretty much as you expressed it...) (Warning: dialect speaker here - there's a ton more of those hiding in the closet that I do not even know are there...) No, (s)he is not prosecuting the King. (S)he works for him.
Post #442,291 by CRConrad 11/15/22 2:57:16 AM 11/15/22 2:57:16 AM Reply	Yup, that's it, thanks! Your "des te" must be either the source of Swedish "desto", or another branch descended from a common source. Seems quite probable that the Swedes got it from/via French, which was de rigeur at court in the eighteenth century. Or some other Romance language -- that term had apparently slipped my mind yesterday, so "Latinate". -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #442,306 by crazy 11/17/22 7:41:03 PM 11/17/22 7:41:40 PM Reply	The longer I live, obviously the stupider I am. Not a language nerd, and won't remember any of this stuff, but boy I'm impressed. Edited by crazy Nov. 17, 2022, 07:41:40 PM EST Expand All History
Post #442,318 by CRConrad 11/18/22 6:09:20 AM 11/18/22 6:09:20 AM Reply	Impressed by people speaking foreign languages? Relax, we're cheating. They aren't foreign to us. :-) -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #442,319 by malraux 11/18/22 8:46:20 AM 11/18/22 8:46:20 AM Reply	Says the guy who knows 5, IIRC Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #442,320 by drook 11/18/22 11:41:35 AM 11/18/22 11:41:35 AM Reply	CRC is 50 times bigger than IIRC -- Drew

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