The meaning is clear enough

The contributor Ye Olde Pedant is swift to chide you for using the term lese-majeste, as it is French in origin. English as a language has been assimilating words from other languages for centuries; some undergo extensive assimilation and appear to us as English, whilst others retain their source language “flavour”. Lese-majeste is one such word and for me is clear enough in its meaning.

Whilst clarity is important it can sometimes leave one with nothing but bare meaning. I doubt the contributor would take a guest out for a celebration dinner by asking them to come to a dining facility with him. I suggest he would use “restaurant”. If we were to practise linguistic apartheid and use only true blue English words, then for me The Nation would be pretty dreary reading, as an examination of the etymology of the words in the contributor’s letter reveals the following:

From Latin: increasingly, irritated, constant, stupid, nation, literally, equal, disrespect, promotes. From French: term, use, language, publish, derived, majesty, sense, defined, offence, sovereign, power, treason, confusion, pedant. From German: find, becoming, of, be, is, wounded, make, little, what, say, let. From Norse: get, rid. From English: I, the, a/an, newspaper, in, you, should, or, not, from, that, means, and, it, can, also, as, near, out, only, bad, enough, already, grumpy, ye, olde.

Perhaps in the interests of saying what he meant, he should have appended his letter “Aged person who trumpets minor points of learning”.

John Patterson 

Bangkok