"That you should have pride in your purer American heritage of language seems to me a slight thing. Latin became corrupt, but French is a sharper language than Latin ever was. The best writing in English today is done by Americans, but not in any purist tradition. They have roughed the language around as Shakespeare did and done it the violence of melodrama and the press box. They have knocked over tombs and sneered at the dead. Which is as it should be. There are too many dead men and there is too much talk about them." -- Raymond Chandler from a 1937 letter to the editor of The Fortnightly Intruder
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:29:32 +0000
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