In message 001c01c176c5$e26fd7e0$56b6d680@8047fr4z0xfs, Kai Karmanheimo karmanhe@cc.helsinki.fi writes
This I was I think my attempt to rationalise Kathryn's comment that lot of native English speakers don't comprehend the untranslatability of puns and the idioms. Bearing in mind that misconceptions about translation and blindness to one's own linguistic idiosyncrasies are a fact of life in just about everywhere, I still find it a hard notion to swallow. Almost as hard as this foot (damn, should've washed me feet first...)
I think it's more to do with the vast numbers of native English speakers who speak only English - and only one dialect of English at that. (Many native speakers have no idea how many words they use everyday were nicked from some other langauge, and not necessarily all that long ago.) The great unstoppable tidal wave that is English (and particularly American English) means that rather more non-English speakers have at least been *exposed* to another language, if only in films that have been dubbed/subtitled in such a way as to be unintentionally amusing.
I've run into this lack of awareness between dialects of English, let alone between languages. The current version is trying to get it across to Californians that I am perfectly serious when I ask for an explanation of what some local idiom means <sigh>.
It's something that can be very noticeable in fanfic. The Americans, not surprisingly, can get a bit upset at rude remarks from British and Australian fans about B7 characters speaking American - they don't understand why it grates so badly, because the language sounds normal to them.
As to whether English is doing more colonising than thieving - I'd say it's still doing a fair amount of thieving, but it's not as obvious because English thieves from *everyone*, whereas your typical language suffering from cultural imperialism is, to the first approximation, being invaded by only *one* language. English steals, other languages are taken over by...
We are English of Borg, your language will be assimilated...