On Wednesday, February 2, 2005, at 11:07 , Pascal A. Kramm wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 23:42:31 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> From:    "Pascal A. Kramm" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> "quite commonly used in English"?  Not in the United States.
>>>> I just turned fifty years old, and I've never run across this word
>>>> before.
>>>
>>> Perhaps not that common on the other side of the big pond, but it's very
>>> common here in Europe. Pretty much all translations of the European
>>> languages use the word "champignon" - in Norwegian, it's spelled
>>> "sjampingjong", and only Italian uses "funghi pataioli".
>>
>> Pascal, I think we've already determined that in fact the word is
>> not common in Great Britain, either, based on Ray's comments and
>> my googling statistics. In fact, I just checked google.co.uk, just
>> to make sure google.com wasn't giving me skewed numbers, and it
>> agreed entirely with the earlier search, providing only 11.3k hits for
>> champignon on English language pages in the UK.
>
> "Only"? I certainly wouldn't call over 11k hits "only". Now if it were
> only
> a few hundred hits, that would surely be rare, but with over 11k hits its
> at
> least somewhat common,

*Not* common - compared to the hits for "mushroom". See below.

> even if some people apparently haven't heard of it
> yet. Well, now you have,

No need for the petty sarcasm! If you had read responses, you will have
seen that we _know_ the word. What we have said is that it is not in
common use in the USA, UK or Australia or - I suspect - in any other part
of the anglophone world.

> and you can add it to your repertoire (oh damn, not
> another nasty French word - hope you guys can deal with it.

English has been absorbing French words ever since the 11th century - far
more so than German has, in fact. We have dealt with it quite successfully
as any unbiassed observer would see.

No, your sarcasm here simply misses the point. *No one has objected to
_champignon_ on the grounds that it is French.* It is your claim that the
word is commonly used in English that "we guys" have taken issue with.

> My English dictionary does list it though.)

Hardly surprising - 'repertoire' has been known to me ever since I was a
teenager. It ain't exactly rare.

Also, as I have said more than once, my English dictionary does list
'champignon' as being any edible fungus, "especially the fair-ring
chamignon (Marasmius oreades)". That does not, of course, mean to say it
is in common use even for that type of mushroom.

But you persist, against all the evidence from people who have been
speaking English as their L1 for 50, 60 or more years, that it is a common
term in English for 'agaricus bisporus' - it ain't.
===================================================

On Thursday, February 3, 2005, at 12:50 , Stephen Mulraney wrote:

> Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 23:42:31 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> From:    "Pascal A. Kramm" <[log in to unmask]>
[snip]
>> "Only"? I certainly wouldn't call over 11k hits "only".
>
> Wouldn't you? That makes it slightly more popular than the misspelling
> "mushroon" at 10k, compared with 3.2 million for "mushroon".

Um - about a third of one percent, I think. Not what I call common.

> Restricting
> the search to Ireland (since I can do it with one click at google) gives
> 57 hits for "champignon", compared with 13,800 for "mushroom" (roughly the
> same proportion as in the wider English web). Many of those 57 results are
> restaurant menus, in French,

That's the only place it would expect to see the word - not in the average
pizzeria, however.

> mushroom, as many people have already said in this thread. How many of
> the native English speakers reading this would think the following
> conversation plausible?
>
> A: 250g of champignons, please.
> B: There you go; that'll be...

    :)

If I asked for that at the local market, the reply is likely to be [wO?
mej?]

On the other hand if I said "A quarter kilo of mush, please", there'd be
no problem.

> A: Do you have any mushrooms?
> B: What kind are you looking for?
> A: Champignons
> B: Sorry, all out of them...
>
> :)

Quite, somewhat surreal, methinks. If there was a choice of mush, the
relpy would be something more like like:
"Do you want the ordinary white ones, or the chestnuts, or them oysters?"

I think if I then said: "Have you got any champignons?" more likely
replies would be "What are they when they're at home?" or "You trying to
be funny, mate?" etc.

>
>> > Now if it were only
>> a few hundred hits, that would surely be rare, but with over 11k hits
>> its at
>> least somewhat common, even if some people apparently haven't heard of it
>> yet. Well, now you have, and you can add it to your repertoire (oh damn,
>>  not
>> another nasty French word - hope you guys can deal with it. My English
>> dictionary does list it though.)
>
> "Repetoire" is indeed an English word. No arguments about that. What does
> that
> prove?

Nothing, as far as I can see, except that Pascal still holds to his
dogmatic statement about English use and answers us anglophones with
sarcasm if we do not agree.
==============================================

On Thursday, February 3, 2005, at 12:31 , Paul Bennett wrote:
[snip]
> My guess is that even a college-educated English person would not
> recognise the word without help.

Having taught college students for the past 14 years, I know darn well
most of them wouldn't.
=============================================

I really think this thread has gone on long enough. I somehow doubt that
Pascal will ever admit he was mistaken on this matter and I am resisting
the temptation to return his sarcasm. The best way to do that, I think, is
to opt out of the thread, which I do forthwith.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
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===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]