USAGE: Borrowing (was: I'm back, sort of)

Nik Taylor scripsit:

> No, no, it's not the life -> raifu that surprised me.  Raifu is
> perfectly normal as an adaptation of "life", but it's the fact that it
> was adapted at all that's depressing.  :-)
Well, fine.  English has a word for "life" too, and yet we found it
worthwhile borrowing the phrase "elan vital", even though it's only the
"elan" that lacks a clearcut native equivalent.  If "campus life"
looks like a sufficiently foreign concept, it's not exactly surprising
that the expression for it should be borrowed, even if it's a phrase
in the language borrowed from.

--
"They tried to pierce your heart                John Cowan
with a Morgul-knife that remains in the         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
wound.  If they had succeeded, you would        http://www.reutershealth.com
become a wraith under the domination of the Dark Lord."         --Gandalf