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Subject:Re: Reply from a Yank-- for Gwen Gall From:"Lori A. Moreland" <lamorela -at- CLE -dot- AB -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 28 Jul 1994 09:19:33 -0400
Bonjour, Mademoiselle Gwen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the lovely, verbally striking piece on the
evolution of English. I absolutely *love* words! Some, especially those derived
from the French, are just so much fun to say! To answer your question about us
yanks & whether we studied English history/language, I think the overall answer
is "yes". On this list, which I enjoy so much because of the fluent writing, I
think you'll find that most people know their history & linguistics. I, for
one, fell in love with the dizzying poetry of the English romantics in high
school (Oh, John Keats! If only you hadn't been dead for 100 years!) So,
combining that love with an innate desire to write, I went on to major in
English. I took this absolutely fascinating course in college called History of
the English Language, in which we traced our language's origin, learned how
languages formed, and so on.
BTW, American writing can be wonderful, too-- from the lush transcendentalism of
Walt Whitman to the spare emotion of Dickinson and Hemingway...
Forgive me. I digress terribly. But thank you for absolutely making my morning!!
Lori Moreland
lori -dot- moreland -at- cle -dot- ab -dot- com
