Who is Eddy Peters?

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:10 AM -0500 2/21/01, Paul McFedries wrote:
>My interpretation is that to say a foreignism is "borrowed" from another
>language or that it's a "loanword" implies a civil transaction of some kind:
>"Excuse me, German, may I borrow the word 'schadenfreude' to use when I see
>someone taking pleasure out of the misfortune of other people? Thank you!"
>However, English is so aggressive at incorporating foreignisms that the
>"borrow" and "loan" metaphors are too prissy and bureaucratic. To account
>for the sheer volume of foreignisms that the language has accumulated, a
>theft metaphor might be more apt.

except for the fact that the principal differences between borrowing
and theft are that
(i) the borrower is expected to give the item back, while no such
expectation applies to the thief
(ii) the borrowee is a willing participant in the transaction, while
the thief operates through stealth, violence, or threat

Since a borrowed (or stolen) word remains in the source language
after entering the target language, it's not clear that either
metaphor really applies that well to words (or ideas, for that
matter).  The transaction is (a little) more like xeroxing, cloning,
or copying artwork.

larry