Now the English language is like London. Every time we speak, it is a mongrel mouthful, whether we know it or not, of Chaucer and Milton and Dryden and Pope and Shakespeare and Dickens and American south-central and ghetto rap and Chicago and Australian convict talk and legal and naval and military. Every phrase we utter is an equivalent of London: It’s both vulgar and processional. It’s both grand and squalid. And that is exactly what human beings are, it seems to me, it’s both animal and it’s noble.
—Stephen Fry