Quotes About Usage

There's a good usability principle right there: If something requires a large investment of time—or looks like it will—it's less likely to be used.

The real principle is that between is used for a relationship of an individual to any number of other individuals, as long as they are being considered two at a time, whereas among is used for a relationship of an individual to an amorphous mass or collectivity.

discriminate between the principles that improve the quality of prose and the superstitions, fetishes, shibboleths, and initiation ordeals that have been passed down in the traditions of usage. The

In fact, these reference works, with their careful attention to history, literature, and actual usage, are the most adamant debunkers of grammatical nonsense. (This is less true of style sheets drawn up by newspapers and professional societies, and of manuals written by amateurs such as critics and journalists, which tend to mindlessly reproduce the folklore of previous guides.)

The authors of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, having surveyed the uses of the two forms over six hundred years, conclude, "The traditional rules about shall and will do not appear to have described real usage of these words precisely at any time, although there is no question that they do describe the usage of some people some of the time and that they are more applicable in England than elsewhere.

Most disputes about "correct" usage are questions of custom and authority rather than grammatical logic (see "The Language Mavens" in my book The Language Instinct), and in these disputes in particular, both parties have grammatical logic on their side. Their

Though bad writing has always been with us, the rules of correct usage are the smallest part of the problem. Any competent copy editor can turn a passage that is turgid, opaque, and filled with grammatical errors into a passage that is turgid, opaque, and free of grammatical errors. Rules of usage are well worth mastering, but they pale in importance behind principles of clarity, style, coherence, and consideration for the reader.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.

Marijuana isn't bad for everyone any more than alcohol is bad for everyone. Sometimes it even appears to improve people.

This is a word that is a pitfall to the most of us whether learned or unlearned. Probably it is the most indiscriminately used word in the language.

One of the biggest hurdles about Foursquare is you need to remember to use it.

You increasingly are seeing more Macs than PCs.

Milano e' una citta' che usiamo molto ma vediamo poco.

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

I suspect most copies were used to wipe arses or light fires.

India is a groundwater civilization. Almost all Indians use groundwater, directly or indirectly, each day.

We're all getting in trouble on Twitter - just get off and use your Instagram.

When a custom is actually proved to exist, the next enquiry is into the legality of it; for if it is not a good custom it ought to be no longer used.

Believe it, dude. But even if Ari and I are mistaken we are neither confused nor confusing. There is nothing inconsistent or incoherent about my definitions, nor do they contradict ordinary usage. A libertarian or anybody else who can't understand what I'm saying is either playing dumb or he really is. People who are maybe not even half-educated understand what I say about work.

The high-tech community was getting a lesson in the dynamics of network effects—products or services become increasingly valuable as more people use them.

prominent spokespeople lecture us that cocaine is a drug with "neuropsychological properties" that "lock people into perpetual usage" so that the only way people can stop is when "supplies become unavailable," after which "the user is then driven to obtain additional cocaine without particular regard for social constraints.

Social media has become a dark place, and the sites need to clean up their act if they want people to keep using them.

Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.

Incidentally, the idea that we use only 10 percent of our brains is a myth. No one knows where the idea came from, but it has never been true or close to true. You may not use it all terribly sensibly, but you employ all your brain in one way or another.