Originally Posted By: of troy
well, english as an advantage, its a thief! when there are idea's that we can't encapsulate in a single work, (and others have) we steal their word.

sometimes a word like amuk is softened down in meaning, other words like boondocks keep pretty close to orginal meaning.


Anne Curzan made exactly this point in yesterday's chat:

"English is characterized by the massive amount of lexical/word borrowing that speakers have done over the centuries. (Although I think perhaps it is more appropriately called "stealing," as we don't seem to have any plans to return the words!)"