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Recent Publications by New English Review Authors
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
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Defending The West:
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Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
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Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq
Sunday, 30 September 2007
How I Learned The Word "Xenoglossophobia"

I'm waving a white flag, I surrender. I did find a word for my problem toward Latin - Xenoglossophobia. -- from the same reader

No need to "surrender." If you would just decide to welcome, make that leap, rather than to feel annoyance at, the occasional use, by me, of an occasional phrase that is not in English but in Latin or French, but is used so commonly by English writers in time and space, that one has a right to think it not unreasonable to use it, you would be happier, I would be happier, all God's chillun would be happier.

And all you would have to do should such a phrase, or even an unusual word in English, swim into your now-handsomely-unbegrudging ken, is not to drive all the way to some distant library, but merely to click to find the meaning on the Internet.

Oh, I know what you're going to say at this point. You're going to say: "But how does Hugh know I have a computer? How does he know, even if I have a computer, that I would be able to use it with such ease?"

To which I reply: Don't try to fool me. I wasn't born yesterday, you know.

Let's be on the same side. It's so much easier that way.

Posted on 1:29 PM by Hugh Fitzgerald
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