From: <DougEwell2@cs.com>
> The "analogy" of deleting 25 percent of the Latin alphabet or 75 percent
of
> the English vocabulary is completely pointless.
Pointless? I beg your pardon, but it was the most effective
spot in the article. In this analogy the Author is showing
his Art at its peak.
I particularly liked the following:
>One could
>further the analogy by saying English should give up about three
>out of every four words that are found in the English language, on
>the grounds that they are redundant, too arcane, or merely
>superfluous, and modern speech does not either need or use them.
>This would be the end of both the Bible and Shakespeare.
Now, Shakespeare is a strawman put there to make this seem
serious at first, but the Bible? His pretending he doesn't know
that the original is not written in old fashioned English, and it
_doesn't_have_ to be translated into old fashioned English, is a
masterpiece of comedy. A novel Mark Twain is born!
Pierpaolo
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