It is significant that, as Francis Bacon was to do in the time of Shakespeare, Cheke should seek out the analogy with money, with the wealth of man, with the financial stability of the state. Words, like money, must be kept in credit, no National Debt, balanced books. Yet the words Cheke used — like “bankrupt” and even “pure” itself — are not of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic origin. They are from the Latin-based languages, Italian and French. He disliked what he called “counterfeit” words — though “counterfeit” itself was not of Anglo-Saxon origin.
