Re: English river names (was: EU's language policy)

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Article #3363

#3363

From: Edmund Grimley-Evans
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 00:00

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|> : Of course we too have "torrent", "ruisseau", etc...
|> : but you failed ( by ignorance ) to get my point there
|> : there is a significant difference between rivi�re and fleuve, since
|> : the latter pours into the sea while the former pours into a rivi�re
|> : or a fleuve. A difference which does not exist in english. 
|> 
|> You're forgetting about "tributary," which pours into a larger river. The
|> difference does indeed exist in English.

Not really. A "tributary" is not always a river, and it's perfectly
normal to refer to a "riviere" as a "river" in English. Indeed, it
would be very strange to use the word "tributary" unless you were
mentioning the river that it flows into in the same or an adjacent
sentence, e.g. "We went for a walk along the tributary" is not
normal English.

What has this got to do with any of these newsgroups, by the way?
(Followups set.)

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From: etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans)
Subject: Re: English river names (was: EU's language policy)
Date: 1996/02/12
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references: <4el8tf$a3v@chleuasme.francenet.fr> <823128131snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <4f4uno$96r@kielo.uta.fi> <4f8s0u$5s3@chleuasme.francenet.fr> <kurt.823974013@bavur> <COLIN.96Feb11084150@colina.demon.co.uk> <4fnapn$2as@chleuasme.francenet.fr> <4fns3u$3l6@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
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