You're right about "smart." There are other minor inaccuracies that other people pointed out. The origin of "fuck" isn't clear. Were the anglo-saxons actually enslaved? (I'd say yes. Serfdom/slavery, what's the differece?) I didn't write this thing like a researcher. I wrote it like a daytime applied linguist with a secret passion for his crazy-ass blog. I'll do a rigorous one if people actually want that.
I actually want that... but don't do extra work because I ask nicely -- I will gladly pay for an (e)book on this topic, if it was written at a "smart layman"'s level. I think its fascinating, but not career fascinating, if you know what I mean. I just want to read about these things and maybe be able to impress strangers with random facts that were well researched by some person who knows what he's talking about.
I like the hypothesis, I'm sure there must be some research on this.
There is a writing style guide written by a well-known English author, Victorian era, that suggests using saxon over romance words for clarity. I feel this is valid (also more concise, more punchy (more consonants)). I thought it was Kipling but perhaps not... somebody help me out?
"Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones..."
"For example, the word "photograph" (from Greek light+writing) would become "sun-print" (from Saxon). Other terms include "wortlore" (botany), "welkinfire" (meteor) and "nipperlings" (forceps)."
In Finland there is a government agency called Kielitoimisto ("Language bureau"), which has as its mission to keep the language pure from foreign influences. They've recently tuned it down, but I remember a lot of proposals from them in the 90s similar to the ones you listed
Comparably, the French have L'Académie Française. Stuffed to the roof with curmudgeons who reject all foreign influences -- even from other Francophonic countries.
There's cases where Swiss French (counting), Quebecois French (conjugation of many verbs) etc is more logical or more consistent, but the changes are rejected as foreign by the Académie.
In France the equivalent is the Académie française. So in French a computer is an Ordinateur, whereas in a lot of other languages it's derived from the English word. A few random examples: German: Computer. Spanish: Computadora. Scots Gaelic: Coimpiutair.
Actually, in European Spanish, "Ordenador" is way more common than "Computadora" (as an example, the former has 5 million results on Google for .es sites, while the latter has only just over 270k).
You're right about "smart." There are other minor inaccuracies that other people pointed out. The origin of "fuck" isn't clear. Were the anglo-saxons actually enslaved? (I'd say yes. Serfdom/slavery, what's the differece?) I didn't write this thing like a researcher. I wrote it like a daytime applied linguist with a secret passion for his crazy-ass blog. I'll do a rigorous one if people actually want that.