Robert Claiborne
American editor and writer
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
English, like all languages, is a sign of the times -- present or past. It is also a record of the invention and imagination, the poetic or playful fantasies, the sly or sardonic humor, of the known and unknown people who have shaped it.
—Robert Claiborne, American editor and writer, Our Marvelous Native Tongue, 1983
Posted on November 9, 2000 at 10:43 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
It is the enormous and variegated lexicon of English, far more than the mere numbers and geographical spread of its speakers, that truly makes our native tongue marvelous — makes it, in fact, a medium for the precise, vivid and subtle expression of thought and emotion that has no equal, past or present.
—Robert Claiborne, American editor and writer, Our Marvelous Native Tongue, 1983
Posted on December 12, 2000 at 4:55 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
For centuries, the English-speaking peoples have plundered the world for words, even as their military and industrial builders have plundered it for more tangible goods. And linguistic larceny has this major advantage over more conventional types of theft: it enriches the perpetrator without impoverishing the victim.
—Robert Claiborne, American editor and writer, Our Marvelous Native Tongue, 1983
Posted on September 8, 1998 at 12:52 PM
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