Wordy Americanisation and Old Norse

Sir, – Like Dr Aisling Denihan (Letters, March 31st), I too enjoyed Donald Clarke's spirited defence of Irish-English against Americanisms.

The marauding horde of would-be Vikings in Dublin yesterday to audition as extras for the TV series reminds me how much our language owes a debt to Old Norse. Mr Clarke is angry about the ransacking and slaughter of the English lexicon by ugly, wrong words.

It’s a bleak and scary picture he paints; the sly knife in the back of the language, which seems to be accepting it meekly. – Yours, etc, NIALL McARDLE Eganville, Ontario.