In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley writes:
|
| James Nicoll's epigram applies -
|
| "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
| English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow
| words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways
| to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary"

Quite. The Larousse Francaise and the Shorter Oxford are about the
same size, and go into comparable detail. The difference is that
the former describes essentially the whole of the general French
vocabulary, and the latter describes perhaps 1/3 of the general
English one.

And that's ignoring the tens of thousands of English dialects, argots,
cants, jargons, pidgins and all that ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.