Whose rules?

The English language has always been tolerant of contributions from elsewhere. So many of the words we use, other than the basic Anglo-Saxon ones, come from other languages. English speakers may change them and pronounce them differently, but we keep them and make them our own.

Yet trouble seems to follow whenever other languages become too highly regarded by English speakers, often supposed language experts. Many of the silly language rules we older folks learned in school were imported from Latin as late as the 19th century. These include not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with a preposition. Yet English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language. Latin rules do not apply to English.

After the Normans conquered England in 1066, numerous French words entered the English language — at least the English spoken by aristocrats. Thus, chickens became poultry and pigs became pork, among many others. Again, English welcomes words from anywhere.

But there are many words and phrases that English speakers have adopted simply because they sound French, yet they are not French at all. We just like to pretend they are French because they make us sound more sophisticated. These include such expressions as piece de resistance, nom de plume, affair d'amour and even negligee. These are unknown in France. The British simply made them up.

Over the years the British were quick to accept French spellings of English words. In fact, Americans spell many English words in a more traditional English way than the British do. The British now use the word honour because of French influence. Americans spell it as honor, the way the English used to. Similarly, Americans use theater, center and fiber, while the British, under French influence, now spell these theatre, centre and fibre.

But the English language isn't French, any more than it's Latin. We English speakers can take their words, but we should follow our own rules.