"Hand over your adjectives and no one gets hurt!"

September 12, 2011 8:02 AM

"American English is like a mugger in a back alley who, instead of taking your wallet, takes your pocket dictionary". I read a quote in this vein a while ago and I'm trying to identify the actual quote and the source.
posted by chara to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Best answer: “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.”

-James D. Nicoll
posted by jeather at 8:06 AM on September 12, 2011 [12 favorites]

The source is one of Nicoll's posts on the usenet group rec.arts.sf.written or rec.arts.sf.fandom .
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:11 AM on September 12, 2011

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the quote, and here's its original appearance, in a rec.arts.sf-lovers post from 1990.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:44 AM on September 12, 2011