We may thus posit, as the basic principle of language economy, that the amount of energy spent toward linguistic ends will tend to be proportionate to the amount of information to be conveyed. This might be construed as if no feature or unit in a language would endure unless it contributed to communication a share corresponding to the efforts required by its memorization or production. But this is palpably untrue; every language carries along a heavy load of most uneconomic forms which, for various reasons, have been retained throughout centuries.
- Martinet (1962), a pag.139-140