Tournesol 🌻 (@tournesol)

Tournesol 🌻 @tournesol@peculiar.florist

1y

daily reminder that the english word for "connection" is written using a french syntax whereas the french word for it, "connexion", is using an english syntax.

In my next talk, we'll see why I hate "langage" and "language".

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Çağatay Yiğit Şahin @cagatayy@mastodon.social

1y

@tournesol I checked the top two links on this list of French word frequency lists and only words that end with “-xion” there are “réflexion” and “connexion,” both of which come from a Latin root that is spelled with “x.” I don’t know if there are words that are similarly derived from a root that is spelled with “x” but are spelled with “ct,” but I suspect that the distinction may be the construction: Some words end with “c” and take a “-tion” suffix, …

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Çağatay Yiğit Şahin @cagatayy@mastodon.social

1y

@tournesol … and some have a “x” and take a “-ion” suffix. They happen to sound the same but the spelling is not modified because of this.
I don’t know French so I may be very wrong and I am sorry for messing with a casual complaint :) It got me curious and I thought others may be interested too.
By the way, I think this is a matter of orthography rather than syntax.

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Tournesol 🌻 @tournesol@peculiar.florist

1y

@cagatayy yeah it's just a casual thing that frustrate me and make me laugh but I'm really glad it sparked interest cause I'm quite curious of this kind of things

by memory there's a bit more use of -xion in french (flexion, complexion, …) but the general use of X is so rare and specific to certain words that it's usually have a sort of english ring to it to bilingual speakers. It's use don't follow any common grammatical or orthographic rule of french.

from what I've quickly read about it, X is was incorporated in latin by greek words and just stuck, by tradition I guess

and yeah you're completely right it's an orthography case rather than syntax, just sounded better on the moment for my non-linguistic brain :neocat_blush_hide:

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