Stop the Inanity
The news fast is a mixed success. It’s tough to avoid news of the war — its influence is everywhere. In today’s word of the day , for Pete’s sake, Anu notes:
After a recent week of words from law, where many of the words are of French
origin, I received this email from a reader: “I propose you no longer feature words which have a base or stem from the French language. I no longer see that as a positive e-mail.”
Words fail me. As they’d fail all English speakers who sought to avoid French-derived words.
The French language is obnoxious, and it's easy to see why people would want to see it destroyed. I suspect that some people are just using the debates about the war as an excuse to vent their anti-Francophonism (a lovely compound word that itself has French roots... ah, the irony).
Posted by Jimcat on April 15 2003 11:24
I can think of some very fine Anglo-Saxon words that I'd be delighted to offer the letter-writer.
Posted by Scott on April 17 2003 17:25