In Competition 2809 you were invited to submit a letter liberally sprinkled with evidence of an imperfect grasp of foreign languages.
In his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ George Orwell took a pop at the self-conscious use of foreign words and expressions: ‘Cul de sac, ancien régime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, Gleichschaltung, Weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance … Bad writers … are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones…’
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