Random trivia

The diction reminds me of singing. [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
It's old posh English. [!--emo&:P--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/tongue.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'tongue.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Maybe he intentionally used short sentences so that everyone (especially abroad) could understand the meaning of the speech even if missing part of it because of interferences on the radio.
 
Both the slow diction and the latin roots implies that it was done this way to make it understandable for the french who could listen to the BBC
 
Syl, you're so close it's almost frustrating!

think about the origins of the key word in the speech (only used once), compared to the origin of all the other words.
 
Frustrating is the word [!--emo&:D--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/biggrin.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'biggrin.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--QuoteBegin-national acrobat+Sep 5 2005, 01:12 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(national acrobat @ Sep 5 2005, 01:12 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Or maybe the key word is surrender, derived from old french?
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Close enough, n.a.!

'surrender' is the only word in Sir Winston's speech which is not from the Anglo-Saxon (old English) language, and hence the only 'foriegn' word in the speech. He deliberately dd this, and it's supposed to signify that surrender was a concept foriegn to Britain.
 
What are you talking about ?????
I'm sorry to contradict you but if surrender is foreign to Britain, so are also : ocean, confidence, defend, air, subjugated, armed, guarded, carry , all from Old French, Middle French or directly from Latin. And I can't imagine that ocean is a foreign concept to the British.

Well.... what is this all about ? Is there anything significant in that quote after all ? [!--emo&:unsure:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/unsure.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'unsure.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Most of them come from Latin, only some came a long way through French after the Norman conquest (court terms, for instance - armed, quard, surrender) and some during the period of New Learning, directly from Latin (scholarly terms - subjugated, confidence).

I think Duke is right about surrender being the key word, but it's not the only foreign word in the speech.

As for the origin of surrender, and render or rendre if you will, that one might have something to do with the Latin reddo - to give back, to give again (I think).
 
I'm pretty sure that surrender doesn't come from the latin reddo. I typed 'surrender' into dictionary.com, and it says that the word is derived from Middle English surrenderen, which is from Old French surrendre.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-national acrobat+Sep 6 2005, 03:18 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(national acrobat @ Sep 6 2005, 03:18 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]I'm pretty sure that surrender doesn't come from the latin reddo. I typed 'surrender' into dictionary.com, and it says that the word is derived from Middle English surrenderen, which is from Old French surrendre.
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But the root of the word, rendre, comes from it. The meaning didn't even shift that much.
 
surrender comes from Old French surrendre, from sur (above, over, in addition)+ rendre (give back), from Latin super + rendere ( alteration of reddere).

So it might be the key word but if Churchill thought it was the only foreign word and did this deliberately, obviously he was wrong.
 
I think those words of Middle French origin may all have been used deliberately, like you said before, syl.
 
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