On the Purity of the English Language

While looking through my old blog posts for this week’s blast from the past, I found the following quote on the purity of the English language, on a blog that no longer exists, which I found via a link from a blog that no longer exists:

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.

So I said to myself, I wonder who actually said this? Turns out it’s a fellow named James Nicoll, and he said it on the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf-lovers back in 1990. I found it originally courtesy of blogger Lynn Sislo, who I’d lost track of; she’s now blogging at Violins and Starships.