"English: A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary."

Unfortunately this quote was unattributed, but I thought it funny nevertheless.

Dear lord, jo, I love it !!!!

So much so that I spent undue time looking it up. It seems to have been a witty 1990 comment on a computer board, that somehow caught fire. The original text was:

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

The author, who signs himself "JDN", is apparently James D. Nicoll.

jo, you made my day. Thank you!

As far as I can remember, the analogy of the English language as a pirate or pickpocket goes back many years. I'll have to search for specific examples. Most linguistics books I've read have referred to such a metaphor, but none of them are before 1990.

quote:

cribhouse

What's one of those? A cribhouse, I mean, not a whore ;-)

quote:

What's one of those? A cribhouse, I mean, not a whore ;-)

Richard using emoticons? Be still my heart!

A crib is "a small building, usually with slatted sides, for storing corn" or "a stall for cattle", and hence by obvious extension, "a small crude cottage or room". A small room, holding nothing but a bed, would of course be an inexpensive and feasible venue for the sort of business transactions in which a lady of the evening engages.

In turn-of-the-century New Orleans, "social reformers ... wanted to limit and regulate prostitution," and so by ordinance created a legally-permitted red-light district ("the nation's first legally designated prostitution district"). It was "the only district where prostitutes could live and work. Supposedly this would keep brothels from trashing other neighborhoods."

There one found lavish and pricy bordellos and, for the lower-price trade, "hundreds and hundreds of 'crib' girls, who charged much lower rates and worked out of small one and two room cribs, furnished with only a bed and a chair. They might rent a crib for a night for as much as three dollars. Then they might charge men anywhere from ten to fifty cents. Competition tended to keep the prices brutally low in the cribs."

So a 'cribhouse whore' would be one of the lowest class, doing a "low margin high volume" business.

Quotes above are from bigeasy.com, which notes "crib" for the room and "crib girl" for the renter. There's no mention of 'crib house' for the establishment, but the connection is obvious.