Guys: surely glee or gloating is good enough in the right context.
Ængelfolc: can't practise sidestepping awkward questions without asking awkward questions,

Ængelfolc: Well I must say this column is quite entertaining; I haven't had such linguistic fun since I left skool; thank you. "Soapbox" was in fact forehanded flattery,
'"Foot in mouth": -- not at all : in fact very deliberate training in answering awkward questions diplomatically.
"Western" and "Eastern" and "Middle East" don't make much sense if you live in Hong Kong, as the middle east is in the far west and so forth. They are eurocentric terms.
Not trying "to do away with cultural identity" just wouldn't want the Balkan/ Bosnia/Sarajevo situation to trigger another "Great War" .

So German words are acceptable but 'unakzeptabel" is not, Oder?

Tsch

Oh and I once vary unwisely asked a guy from the "Middle East" what his wife's name was...

Ængelfolc: It is a matter of Weltanschauung*. Students from South America, from Russia east of the Urals I think of as having "European" culture, educational background, and attitudes, when compared to say, Arabic-speakers, or students from SE Asia, where their background, educational experiences, and culture may be quite different. Of coure I am aware that this is an overgeneralisation, but forewarned is forearmed for what problems may crop up in working together.
For instance I once asked a Japanese student how people complained in Japan. "You don't", (And apropos of nothing I once asked a Japanese diplomat why they attacked Pearl Harbor.....I expected "No comment" but....really shouldn't have embarrased him)
As for the EU, well one would hope its raison d'etre would be to foster working together instead of starting great wars.... but it really was just a throwaway remark. (Frankish!)
But your soapbox is nice.
Which brings us to weltanschauung, abseil, angst, anschluss, autobahn, automat, sauerkraut, schadenfreude, schmalz, schmuck, schwa, shyster, spiel, shtum, and so on. These are all listed in English dictionaries. Are we to throw them out because they are foreign? Or accept them as English simply because they are germanic? Be careful with schmuck, it might be slav. The point in my view is whatever, they are European, that's good enough.

wlyan138: German or Dutch are both much purer than English, and have some good literature etc, Oder hast Du keine Lust dazu? (Or hast thou no Lust thereto?)

Sometimes the virtues of English word roots can be overstated. For example, the meaning of phrasal verbs such as "give up" or "put up with" is not easily deduced from their constituent parts, but rather inferred from the context. Other examples might include "undergo" "forego". Equally even if one understands the Latin roots, the meaning of "succeed" is not easily deduced. It's sometimes the same in German. "Unfall", (unfall) does not obviously mean "accident". So people learn the meaning from context, and the roots may be just a side issue, or even a red herring.

Ængelfolc: Provocateur? Moi? Honi soit qui mal y pense! But such stirring replies!
Seriously though, I deal with people from countries all over the world. The most striking thing is that despite all their differences Europeans have more in common with each other than with, say, Vietnamese, Koreans, Thai, etc. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to say this is Germanic, and that is Greek, when in fact they are both European, and sometimes muddled together. The EU is there for a reason.
Let us take Hungary as an example. Romans, Avars, Arpad and co, Genghis, Schwabisch, Ottomans, Slavs, Soviets, you name it they've been there, and affected the language, and the people. All we can say is they are European and today's Hungarian is European. English is much the same, just a "mongrel' language, but no worse for that. Yes those Latinate words can sound snooty, but we can avoid them in daily speech. I think you already agree with my general drift here. Ciao!

Why is an updated OE word more acceptable than a latinate one? Both are the tongue of immigrants, incomers, overcomers, latecomers, settlers from overseas. The true tongue of Britain is of course Celtic, Welsh or Gaelic. Not quite the Urheimat of the Celts, but the birthright tongue of Britain nevertheless, and extant in Britain thousands of years before Anglo Saxon. Welsh is a living language taught at schools, spoken and used in Wales. Gaelic still has about 60000 native speakers. More than Anglish!. Arthur died at Badon hill defending the Celtic heritage. Boudicca fought off the Romans........ and so forth.... the propaganda of "history"

I always thought the Bayeux Tapestry depicted the UEFA cup finals in 1066, with the English football hooligans singing "you'll never walk alone" upon the terraces, and horseback riders trying to control the scimmage. Harold likely just poked himself in the eye with his own umbrella. Final score: Normandy:1, England: nil.
But maybe I'm just dreaming.

Harold's death in 1066 cast a long SHADOW over England. That's why the English always carry UMBRELLAS, "lest we forget." On a wet and crowded street, dodging umbrella spokes, spare a thought for 1066, it was certainly "one in the eye" for Harold.

wlyan138 : you are right on the money in saying that disruptive has a very specific meaing of stalling a process or in my example stopping the progress of a lesson. This is indeed the important point. As for "inbutting" I really can't teach words that are not in current use already. And there is a target list of high frequency vocabulary to concentrate on. Also "inbutting" only covers interruptions, whereas "disruptive" covers
ANY behavior that impinges on true participation in the lesson, like quietly texting away in your lap. It is a beautiful catch-all word.
"undermining" is a possibility. "disturbing" might quickly lead to the suggestion that I am disturbed, which has psychiatric connotations. The pity is that Gernman has a nice word "stoeren" which might fit the bill, but I think it is "stir" in English with a different meaning, except in the phrase "he was a stirrer" ie troublemaker.
It is a case, as you rightly acknowledge, where le mot juste happens to be a latinate word.
Ængelfolc: Without in any way trying to undermine your postion, I think we should consider the possiblity that the Normans wrote history to justify the conquest. Harold, had he won, would have put a different spin on the whole thing.
"Honey, my boss has been undermining our marriage"

"Sorry to break in" is a common enough way of interrupting; in fact break in is in the dictionary as meaning interrupt. You can also use "butt in". We can make nouns like:
"Butting-in will not be tolerated". "Break-in" usually refers to burglary, as in "There was a break-in last night", so "breaking-in" may lead to confusion if the context is not clear.
"Inbutting" as an adjective is unusable at present.
I did teach "disruptive" today and so was able to utter those magic words to a student:
"I love you very much but your behavior is disruptive" and we both laughed.
But of course it is not a cure-all for unruly behavior