Quotes About Language

Here it's probably worth pointing out that the original meaning of advice was "judgment.

Hefty? I'd railed to Peter, waving the clipping for emphasis. Hefty? For the record 'Hefty' is a trash bag. I'm festively plump.

Das Mädchen ist auf der Suche, es versucht zu sprechen, aber wie durch eine löchrige Dekoration scheint durch das Vokabular, an dem nichts eigentlich Falsches ist, immer eine schwarze, gähnende Leere hindurch.

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.

and although the W came along in the tenth century, modern Germans still seem to manage perfectly well by using a V instead. Except when the German managing director of Aston Martin tries to say 'vanquish'.

There was a general tendency to ascribe almost any irregular or bad behaviour to the French. [...] A tonsil-tickling embrace is still known as a French kiss, as if somehow it would never have occurred to an English person to stick their tongue into another person's mouth if the French hadn't invented it.

The moment a Frenchman opens his mouth, he declares his identity. The French speak French. The English speak a language which belongs to no one.

Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.

When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace.  When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.

To tell you the truth - mind, this is strictly between ourselves, please; I shouldn't like your wife to know I said it - the women folk don't understand these things; but between you and me, you know, I think it does a man good to swear.

There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter where— anywhere.

nothing excuses violence of language and coarseness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully brought up

KlÄ™li przy tym na nas ile wlezie, ale u?ywali przy tym nie pospolitego sÅ'ownictwa rodem z rynsztoka, tylko starannie przemyÅ›lanych inwektyw, które obejmowaÅ'y caÅ'e nasze ?ycie, siÄ™gaÅ'y w odlegÅ'Ä… przyszÅ'o?? i dotyczyÅ'y naszych krewnych oraz wszystkiego, co siÄ™ z nami wiÄ…zaÅ'o.

I don't understand German myself.  I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.

We did not know what had happened at first, because the sail shut out the view, but from the nature of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gathered that we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings, and that they were vexed and discontented.

În biserica din Walton se g?sesc un fel de chingi din fier, pe care cei de alt?dat? le întrebuinÅ£au pentru a Å£ine în frâu limbile femeilor cic?litoare. În zilele noastre se pare c? s-a renunÅ£at la procedeu. Se vede treaba c? s-a împuÅ£inat fierul ÅŸi c? nimic altceva nu s-a dovedit suficient de rezistent.

When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.

Vowels were something else. He didn't like them and they didn't like him. There were only five of them, but they seemed to be everywhere. Why, you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel. Consonants, you know pretty much where you stood, but you could never trust a vowel.

Accents don't show up in music.

Karen told me about an old woman who was the last surviving inhabitant of one of the Hermit Islands. She was the only one left who could speak her tribe's language, but the anthropologists didn't realize it and never bothered to learn it from her. When the old woman died, the language died with her.

His accent was coarse, pure backcountry Minnesotan. If he had to string together more than five words, we'd hear the "I seen it" and "can you borrow me some" that my parents said were the signs of ignorance

I don't think you put the swear word in the right place, Grandpa," Teddy says. When Dad first came here, my boys would look shocked whenever Dad went Old-Faithful-profane, and I began to wonder if Lisa and I shouldn't swear more so Franklin and Teddy weren't so put off by curse words.

Use beautiful to describe a sandwich, and the word means nothing.

Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing.