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DanelleDee t1_isjgxvz wrote

Exactly! I read a book on etymology called "The Meaning of Everything." I learned that in English it is common to borrow words from other languages and spell them with Anglo-Saxon vowels and misspellings. If these are used often enough, they become a part of the English language. (For example: a Chinese* word for a tomato based condiment is adopted and corrupted into "Catsup," which eventually became "ketchup.") The oxford English dictionary keeps track but there is no one who sets rules on what is incorporated into the language. It's fluid. It changes a lot over time.

So you might be able to convince me that "adovada" is a word in English. But Spanish (and French,) are regulated. There is a board that standardizes the language and makes rulings on new words. Mistakes are not incorporated into the language. People still use "slang,' but it is always understood to be incorrect and doesn't change the original meaning of the word over time. Interestingly, this means French has only a small fraction of the number of words that English has, and older French texts are much more comprehensible to a modern reader than English texts.

*Sorry, I don't know which dialect.

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