> you can do FP in any language
Depends on your definition of functional programming.
Depends on your definition of functional programming.
The basic premise that you are operating with mathematical functions, which allow you to reason equationally can be done in any language.
Of course when you move from C to Perl you pick up a lot of power in what you can do functionally, and when you move from Perl to Common Lisp you pick up even more, and when you move to Scala or Haskell, you pick up even more from what I have seen.
But just as you can do object-oriented programming in C (a language really not designed for it), you can do functional programming in a lot of languages not really designed for it too.
This statement is only true depending on what you mean by OOP. For instance see this post[0] implementing minimal OOP with scheme.
0: http://robots.thoughtbot.com/you-could-invent-objectoriented...
But there is a common thread through these. Namely with OOP, you are tying structure and behavior together so that behavior can encapsulate structure. OOP, like FP, isn't so much "a paradigm" as a "family of paradigms," one or more per language.