English Language Reference Desk/Archives/2010

programs that seem to have been on my stuff
i discpovered this site on software controls on craigslist, it seems that who ever put it here, seems to have tagged both my home computer and my cell phone, here i have been wondering and asking att why my cell phone is acting so strange.


 * First, this is the wrong Desk. This Desk is for questions about the English language.  For general knowledge Q's, like this one, use the Help_desk.  Second, what is your Q, exactly ? And in what way is your cell phone acting strangely ? StuRat 12:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

the influence of French on the English language
Can you tell me what percentage of English words are derived from French words? I was told that it is 60 to 70%, which seems surprisingly high for a language that is, as Wikipeida says, 'a West Germanic language'.


 * According to this Wikipedia article, it's between 33% and 67%: List of English words of French origin. You might wonder why there's such a large range.  Well, how to attribute words which are ultimately from Latin is tricky, as they may go Latin -> English, Latin -> French -> English, Latin -> Spanish -> English, Latin -> Italian -> English, or even more complex paths like Latin -> Italian -> French -> Spanish -> English.  So, which of those words do you say is of French origin ?  And should the same word be listed as both of French origin and also others ?  If so, the total percentage of "source languages for English" goes way over 100%. StuRat 14:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, usually words which come from Norman are included in the "French" statistics. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 19:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)