Dear Gurney down here, from Will Fly up there :-)

Technically speaking, you're quite right. The English that we speak today has around 30% of its vocabulary derived from Norman French.

The point that I was making was that, in spite of being the ruling class in England, the Normans did not convert England into a French-speaking nation. The point of change - which I facetiously referred to as 'giving in' - was when a particular monarch (and I'm damned if I can remember which one at the moment) decided that official records, etc. would be maintained in English.

English - not French. And, yes, the mutated English of the time.

Cheers,

Will - now down here with you.