In Bodmer's "The Loom of Language", a fabulously arch smorgasbord of linguistic delicacies, his withering analysis of Volapuk concludes that what really did for

In Bodmer's "The Loom of Language", a fabulously arch smorgasbord of linguistic delicacies, his withering analysis of Volapuk concludes that what really did for the language was the decision to use it exclusively in what turned out to be its last international conference. This brought all its flaws and difficulties into sharp relief, whence the schisms began. Bodmer is not much kinder towards Esperanto, deeming it inferior to Peano's Latine Sine Flexione ("Latin without inflections"), for which he claims "an educated person can read it quite easily", a statement that reveals as much as any other that he was writing in the '40s. The book is full of little bon mots like this, I'm gutted that I've lost my copy.