By Martin Rubin
MAY WE BORROW YOUR LANGUAGE: HOW ENGLISH HAS STOLEN, PURLOINED, SNAFFLED, PILFERED, APPROPRIATED AND LOOTED WORDS FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE WORLD
By Philip Gooden
Head of Zeus/IPG, $24.95, 359 pages
Rather than focus on the back-and-forth dynamic between languages, British author Philip Gooden has chosen to concentrate on the English language as a sponge that soaks up foreign words from many languages, a list of which he usefully provides. His book is organized charmingly as well as practically, providing in chronological order a multitude of foreign words purloined and then firmly ensconced in our language. His justification for this is characteristically humorous as well learned:
” ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal,’ Picasso said or is supposed to have said. English is a great language by any reckoning, and so it must also be reckoned as more of a thief than a copier yet to steal words from a language does not deprive that language of its own words; rather it is to share the original expressions more widely, in the process often giving them a different spelling, another shape and perhaps a meaning that has strayed some distance from the one in the source. English is adept at this. The language is a great borrower, a practiced thief.” Read more
Source: Washington Times
