What a way to convey the invigorating presence of foreign words in a language.  Even if imperfectly grafted, they add something of value, providing the same ‘rank zest’ that a wipe of garlic brings to a salad bowl.

‘There are, through this random incrustation of Turkish words on the smooth surface of the Greek language – jagged and barbarous sounds perhaps, but with a rank zest like a wipe of garlic round a salad bowl – a number of noble Persian words…’

Source: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, introduction by Michael Gorra, New York: New York Review of Books, 2006 (1958), p. 192

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