>>>What's the point!?
>>
>>There is no point, it just is, and I agree with you that it's crazy. It is a result of history. The Latin language heritage I believe mixed who knows what.
>
>I didn't mean "What's the point of all you (iberophonic?) idiots using all these stupid forms?" - rather "Why the hell were they ever developed in the first place?" :-)

Interesting question. May have served a useful purpose once. Or perhaps it's just an accumulation of mistakes. Unlike living beings, in languages there is no strong natural selection that eliminates useless accidents.


>But, despite all of English's foibles, given examples like you've shown, it's no wonder it's the lingua franca.

For historic and economic reasons rather than for the language characteristics, of course. I do like English. It can be very expressive and it's very useful as the real world's Esperanto.


>>>On the French theme: I believe that Canadian French has quite a few words, forms and expressions that aren't in the native language. And I expect the accent is different too (I suppose like the difference between Canadian English and English English. All this contributes to making the language very difficult to follow for those who learnt French French. e.g. the song "Une Complainte pour St. Catherine" by K & A McGarrigle has several un-French words and is practically unintelligible to me.
>>
>>Yes regional words and expressions, not to mention accents! Was it Henry Higgins who said that he could tell where someone was from within a mile or whatever by the accent?
>>
>>And another amazing thing is how deeply imprinted these nuances become. Like how it bothers us when someone uses an expression incorrectly :) For example your instead of you're.
>
>Or "in stead" instead of "instead" :-)