Quotes About Semantics

To call this conveyance a "passenger dirigible" is an exercise in creative semantics. It is a huge lifting device with cargo holds large enough to carry the town of Felix out to sea and still have room for thousands of bales of fiberplastic. Meanwhile, the less important cargo—we passengers—make do where we can.

The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [ Inigo Montoya ]

You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does." "How

You keep that saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

What's he like?" "Thoughtful. Interesting. Compassionate." "These are English words for ugly.

An idiom is a set phrase of two or more words that means something different from the literal meaning of the individual words.

In the meantime, the works of Gordon, Lupyan, and others suggests that words are not just convenient labels for things; rather, they are extremely powerful mental devices.

He concluded that language, specifically the act of naming something with a word, helps categorize.

There is no such thing as an empty word, only one that is worn out yet remains full.

I fail to see why you did not understand that groceryman, he did not call it 'ground ground nuts,' he called it ground ground-nuts which is the only really SENSible thing to call it. Peanuts grow in the GROUND and are therefore GROUND-nuts, and after you take them out of the ground you grind them up and you have ground ground-nuts, which is a much more accurate name than peanut butter, you just don't understand English.

I fail to see why you did not understand that groceryman, he did not call it "ground ground nuts," he called it "ground ground-nuts" which is the only really SENSible thing to call it. Peanuts grow in the GROUND and are therefore GROUND-nuts, and after you take them out of the ground you grind them up and you have ground ground-nuts, which is a much more accurate name than peanut butter, you just don't understand English.

Distinction without a difference.

he was able to laugh at his weakness for fiddly words. When he and Boswell were in the Highlands and passed through Glen Shiel, Boswell described a mountain as 'immense', but Johnson corrected him—'No; it is no more than a considerable protuberance.' NICETY     1.

The separation of word and thing is the essential fact on which our adult lives are founded.

The more deeply language is probed, the more traces it reveals of the beings that produce it.

Linguists have noticed that across the history of language some words start out as obvious, conscious metaphors and then slowly embed themselves in our daily usage in such a way that we're no longer aware that they are metaphors.

The meanings of words and the uses of words come from practice from the way people in a given culture use those words.

I'm not actually perishing, but I do feel like I die a little every time someone uses 'literally' to mean 'really.'

'Right' and 'wrong' aren't words a linguist uses.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?