One of the things I love about the blogosphere is its tendency to get swept up in micro-furies. I especially love it when the microfury is about language. Maybe because any blogosphere discussion about language is by necessity a meta-discussion --- since the Internet is changing the nature of English usage with every post.
Take this thread about the word "beclowned" at Timblair.net, in which Mr. Blair pokes fun at an academic who criticized the use of the word and then retracted after it was found to exist in the OED. Debate: is he silly because he failed to check before criticizing his opponents, or is he silly because he only thinks words in the OED should be allowed? (I say the latter.)
Some of the commentary is great:
"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 from other languages; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
--James Nicoll, 1990I’ll bedamned.
Your methods, Blair, are quite unsound
And you’re no fun to be around.
In ridicule you must be drowned;
The words you use cannot be found.Is that my nose, so red and round?
Do my feet lengthen on the ground?
If I were not becapped-and-gowned,
I’d say I have myself beclowned.
I was amused, anyway.
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