An interesting bit of etymology that I learnt recently.
The English word “fencing” (as in sword fighting) comes from English “defence”, from Old French “defens”, from Latin “defendere”, meaning “to ward off, defend”.
The French word for fencing is “escrime”. The Italian and Spanish words are also close cognates with French. “Escrime” comes from Old French “escremir”, from Frankish “*skirmjan”.
That means English, a Germanic language, gets its word from Latin, a Romance language.
And the Romance languages of French, Spanish, and Italian get their word from Frankish, a Germanic language.
Essentially, the Romance and Germanic language families did a trade.
Read the novel if you haven’t. The screenwriter (William Goldman) wrote the novel as well, and it’s fantastic. It has depth to it that wouldn’t have worked in the movie.
I’m a huge fan of his.
Two of his works that got great movies; ‘Magic’ and ‘Marathon Man.’ imho both are as good as anything Hitchcock ever did.
He really understood what works on screen and on the page. It’s a rare trait to have mastered both as well as he did.
Here’s a great story. He was working with Michael Douglas on ‘The Ghost And The Darkness,’ They are both highly respected, very savvy film makers.
Douglas plays a mysterious stranger who appears halfway through the movie; white hunter type. The argument is do they give him a backstory? Douglas says peopel need to know who this man is, and goldman says that the story works better if he remains an enigma.
That’s why I love movies; there’s never a “right” answer.