Several languages are more dramatic to the ear than ours, Russian for example. Every sentence of theirs sounds like you’ve just heard Napoleon’s marching on Moscow. Some are prettier - Italian, French and Spanish come to mind. When proposing marriage to an Austro-Hungarian princess, best to do so in French with a Hungarian accent. A few are bellicose like, say, German (I love you in French is “Zhe teme”. By contrast, the German version is: “Ick lebe A dick”. See what I’m saying?) One sounds exactly like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets (that would be Swedish, duh). Dutch echos somebody who failed German instruction. But there’s only one language that offers universal subtly, depth of meaning and versatility of expression. It’s ours and here’s why.
Canadian author James D Nicholl put it best.
“The problem with defending the purity of English is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words from other languages: on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
English is both Germanic and Latin. Fratenal and brotherly don’t mean exactly the same thing. Avuncular doesn’t mean what uncle does. Paternal is different from fatherly.
Jorge Luis Borges, a spectacular linguist, pointed out that English is a perfectly physical language. In Spanish, for instance, you can’t have somebody loom over you.
In English, you can laugh it off, dream away, live it down and live it up. You can’t do those things in Barcelona.
I’ve spent boat-loads of time in Barcelona and there’s a lot of other stuff you can do there. It just costs big Euros, but it’s totally worth it.
Here’s Isabel, one slammin’ hottie of an Austro-Hungarian princess.
Your final line ("Here’s Isabel, one slammin’ hottie of an Austro-Hungarian princess.") makes me suspect you once wrote material for Bob Hope.