slang

[Jonathan Lighter]

Precisely what happened to North Sea Germanic, and now I suppose we must
live with it.

JL

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:15 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      slang
>
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>
> An interesting quotation from Rich Cohen's Israel is Real:
>
> “Now the Jews have returned their holy idea to the street, where, as is
> happening with the Hebrew language, it has been barbarized and filled
> with slang.”
>
> Not having read the book (I got the line from a review), I don't want to
> deal with the underlying political issue, but the idea that "the Hebrew
> language" has been somehow "barbarized and filled with slang" [because
> of the formation of Israel] sounds silly, to put it mildly.
>
> I suppose, a nation of Catholic priests and Classics professors might
> have the same reaction should someone invent a modern form of Latin as
> the primary language for a yet-to-be-founded new Italian state. I am
> just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea. And all this
> time I thought I was a purist!
>
> VS-)
>
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