Language. What's going on?

Tried the Kiwi's trick off the Larsen Ice Shelf this morning. Only 300m but......I have to say it didn't feel a bit like flying, well it didn't feel a bit like I imagine flying to feel. Maybe I've got a bit more imagination than the Kiwi. What did Buzz Lightyear say? "We're not flying. We're falling with some control.' Or some such. No, it's ok, I didn't hurt myself (much). I managed to keep my beak pointing to the water from about 100m down and we're a lot more streamlined than kiwis. Just a bit of a sore head, that's all. Now a 'belly flop', that would have been painful!

Funny thing language. (Well it would be I suppose, being invented by humans) I was reminded of this because finding the kiwi film only came about because I was looking for an alternative site for the 'Do penguins fly?' animation after the whingeing minnies closed down the 'Stage 6' DivX site and, after I found it on youtube, the kiwi was in the list of 'related movies' so.......

Anyways, it got me thinking about the unstoppable rise of the one adjective/adverb dialogue. No, I don't have to spell out exactly what adjective/adverb I'm talking about, lets just call it f*****g or fg for short, this IS a family blog, but its almost like we'll have to invent a new part of speech because adjective/adverb doesn't really describe it anymore. It used to have meaning, it meant you were angry, hostile, agitated. "The fg trains's late again." "Don't fg push me!" Now, it's just inserted in front of any old noun or verb and conveys absolutely nothing. Perhaps in the future the 'F' part of the OED will just be 10 volumes big. Every single noun will start with 'F' as the noun and the adjective get joined together, forever, as one word. Can it be stopped? It seems such a pity. English, with Anglo-Saxon, Latin, French, Asian, is such a rich language. All those nuances of meaning, the subtle differences between words that all fall under one entry in a thesaurus.

So why did I think about that?

Oh by the way, I did not ignore my parental responsibilities when I dived from the ice shelf. (A) I knew I could do it - we used to do it as a dare before I reached breeding age and (B) I left the egg with 'the old one', Havelock, who, too old to breed, still joins the rookery every year and helps out where he can, although he's now too old to take his place on the outside.

So, the reason I thought about this is because the French have this thing about trying to control their language. It goes by the name of 'The French Academy'. They try to ban things like 'le weekend', 'le picnic' etc and it just never works!

The original French animation is called 'Stupide question 1. Les pingouins volent-ils?' You don't need much French, if I tell you 'volent-ils' means 'do they fly' to get the gag. Unfortunately, according to the Academy, they do! All the time! Because contrary to the animators' belief and probably most of the French nation's, 'pingouins' does NOT refer to penguins!

Some etymology. Penguin is thought to derive from the Welsh for 'white head' and was probably first applied to the 'Great Auk', a flightless northern seabird, now extinct. (It went the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon, a victim of a man-made holocaust.) Unique among auks, it had white patches on its head and the name was extended to the whole auk family which DO fly. When (English) sailors first encountered penguins in the southern oceans, they looked and behaved like great auks so they called them 'penguins'.

The birds are in no way related (they just fill a similar ecological niche and so are similar morphologically) and the English ended up reverting to calling 'auks', auks and 'penguins', penguins. The French, however, had a problem. They just didn't call the whole group 'pingouins', they called a specific auk 'le petit pingouin' (the little penguin) which interestingly enough is known as guillemot in English (a corruption of little 'Guillaume' - which is French for William) so the Academy decided all southern 'pengiuns' would be called 'Manchots'. Did it work? Well the animation title says it all! As does 'Le Pingouin' by Picasso

So you can't control it by diktat! Are we linguistically doomed? Probably. But if you have kids, make them aware that fg in front of every noun is unnecessary. Not because it's obscene and refers to things we Anglo-Saxons like to keep behind the bedroom/car/garage door but because there are so many other words that you could use!

Oh and just in case you might think I'm avoiding it because I think it's rude, obscene, taboo etc etc etc

FUCK, FUCKING, FUCKWIT, Situation Normal All FUCKED Up, FUCKED Up Beyond All Recognition:-)

I just hate people debasing MY language!