I don’t think that term has been used for nearly fifty years. But those that did come under that nomenclature certainly made a big contribution to the German economy. Just like the Irish and West Indians did in the same period for the English economy.
Bizarrely, I think it was well understood way back then that there were jobs the domestic workforce didn’t really want to do, like labouring or working on the buses. I don’t understand why Johnson thinks they have suddenly developed an appetite for fruit picking or being up to their knees in animal intestines.
Indeed. I found that theory very interesting and must say it is borne out by my brain. I most definitely process the world around me differently depending on the language which I use for reference. I also observe my french friends have a different way of processing. British irony is entirely lost on Germans. And French. Continental people don’t seem to be possessed of the same degree of abstract. They are also not culturally self deprecating. And that’s a fact!!!
Because he has totally forgotten in his rush to make Britain the technical hot spot of his dreams that the country has to fulfill its basic functions to enable it to carry on.
He is full of pie in the sky, as well as piss and wind.
Whorf’s Language, Thought & Reality is on the bookshelves behind me now. He wrote mainly about languages and cultures very different from Europe (eg. North American aboriginal languages) and indeed tended to see European languages as very similar (which most are linguistically speaking).
But I agree with you - the differences may be subtle, and it’s certainly hard to untangle those that are influenced by language rather than just cultural differences, but the vocabulary and grammatical structures available to us do I think have some influence on the way we experience reality.
I don’t know!!! I’ve only got the family silver…And personally, I find the watches too expensive, the chocolate mediocre and Lake Geneva boring. No, I preferred to hop it to merry England at just gone 18. Them were the days! Miners strike and all that, seems like now is turning into the good ol’days. Bit to go yet, mind. But the beer was good and so were, and in our case are, British motorbikes. Switzerland for the Swiss, I say. And the tax haven thingy doesn’t seem to be what it once was anymore either… So, back to the mainland last year. This lot of Tories is a somewhat meaner bunch than Maggie’s merry men. In the good ol’days they left you alone and stopped considering you a pesky forrinna the day you married a native. 35 years later and they decided I was a forrinna again after all. Still won’t try Switzerland though…