Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Wednesday 29 January 2014

De Tocqueville was not always right

"The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced 
but even more in the new ideas they express."
- de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,  Book I, Chapter 16

Shakespeare,
who introduced hundreds of words to the English language,
did not live in a democracy.
And, although we already had the words
usual, common,
it was democracy which gave us the oppressive word
normal...

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