‘I used to be a detective down at the Ystad precinct. Nowadays, I’m living the good life, and have been taking quite a few day trips up north.’ The ex-detective’s brow lowered in thought as he voiced his query. ‘I hope I’m not coming off as ‘intrusive’, but what do you mean by ‘own me’?’
“Oh, whoops. You speak English so well, I forgot it must not be your first language!” Summer laughed again, this time at herself. “I mean, accept me as part of the family, however distant. It’s an old usage. It’s a bad habit of mine, finding old forms of the language and then confusing people with them.”
‘English’ was my best subject whilst at school, though I am always observant on my inappropriate grammar which can slip sometimes.’ His expression softened into its usual calm demeanour at her answer. ‘Ah, I see. I take it you’re interested in the old languages then? Have you learnt Latin at all?’
“Oh, no! And English, well, English only has Latin by virtue of the Norman invasion a thousand years ago, you know, Norman French, and the /stupid/ impositions of the churchmen, rules that didn’t even belong. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like, maybe this is the same as in Swedish, but you know how in English there’s a rule, no split infinitives? Infinitive is the base form of the verb, like ‘to be,’ except English is one of the few languages where it’s actually two words at all. In Latin an infinitive is a single word and then you conjugate it, so of /course/ you can’t split it. But the rule doesn’t make any sense in English!” This whole fast, passionate spill of speech was accompanied by hands flailing in the air, until Summer caught sight of Magnus’ face and wound to a stop, turning red.
“Oh, gods, I’m /so/ sorry.”