thebitterguy

14) CORRECTION: JAMES NICOLL ATE'NT DEAD!

Last month's Bugarup Campus newsround included the following item:

Libwolf the BU Librarian quoted the following in his sig-line: "The
problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only
borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other
languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled
their pockets for new vocabulary."~ James Nicoll, 1846-1918

Reader Tamar was somewhat surprised:
The statement was by James Nicoll, but what's this about
"1846-1918"? He's still alive and living in Canada, last I heard.
Google for "James Nicoll" and bizarre accidents - there's a list of
the ones he has posted about, and somewhere in there he mentions his
statement about English. He also sells t-shirts (many others sell
variations of what he wrote on t-shirts, but his have what he
actually wrote).

Came in my Wossnamenewsletter this month. Amusing. I'm glad he isn't dead, mind you. I still haven't actually MET him.

James can be found on LJ under, oddly enough,