If Dictionaries are to be the Arbiters of language, in which of them shall we find Neologism. No matter. It is a good word, well sounding, obvious, and expresses an idea which would otherwise require circumlocution. ... I am a friend to Neology. It is the only way to give to a language copiousness and euphony. Without it we should still be held to the vocabulary of Alfred or of Ulphilas.
—Thomas Jefferson, American politician, statesman, and writer, letter to John Waldo, 1820
I am no friend, therefore, to what is called Purism, but a zealous one to the Neology which has introduced these two words without the authority of any dictionary. I consider the one as destroying the nerve and beauty of language, while the otherimproves both, and adds to its copiousness. I have been not a little disappointed, and made suspicious of my own judgment, on seeing the Edinburgh Reviews, the ablest critics of the age, set their faces against the introduction of new words into the English language; they are particularly apprehensive that the writers of the United States will adulterate it.
—Thomas Jefferson, American politician, statesman, and writer, letter to John Waldo, 1813