I'm looking for a famous quote about the "English-language (nonexistent) purity"... where the language is analogized to a whore, or something like that. It's a really good quote... I saw it on Wikipedia once, but someone removed it from some reason... I'd really like to see it again. So, if anyone can help me out, I'll appreciate it...
Thanks,
gobb
Edit: kodus on the new forum design...
Found it!
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
James Nicoll, 1846-1918
James Nicoll, 1846-1918It was a Candaian,
James D. Nicoll, who said it on Usenet. He was born in 1961 and is still alive. It's a great little quotation.
You know too much
No, it's not that he knows too much, it's that he knows so much, (and what more remembers the details!) and is so generous in sharing his knowledge.