Quotes About Language

If you say the same word a million times will it lose its meaning?

The problem, of course, is that languages are not only languages. They're also worldviews -- and therefore, to some extent, untranslatable ...

La langue anglais fait la distinction entre deux types de nudité: alors que "nude" implique le recul, le regard qui cadre et met à distance, "naked" fait sentir toute la vulnérabilité d'un corps dévêtu, exposé, intime ou intimidé. (p.170)

Les langues ne sont pas seulement des langues : ce sont aussi des world views, c'est à dire des façons de voir et de comprendre le monde. Il y a de l'intraduisible là-dedans... et si vous avez plus d'une world view... vous n'en avez, d'une certaine façon, aucune.

Slaves." As one of his loudest critics exclaimed in 1776, "Such was the language of the humane Mr. Locke!" Nor was this surprising. For Locke was a founding member and third-largest stockholder of the Royal

Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent.

Throw enough scientific gibberish at non-scientists and they always faltered.

As the dementia progresses and the person develops trouble with coordination and language, it is easy to forget his need to experience pleasant things and to enjoy himself. Never overlook the importance of hand holding, touching, hugging, and loving.

Easy is an adjective used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man.

In the grammar of the phallus -- the I, I, I -- [woman] can't utter female experience.

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn't shock her. It wasn't vulgar. 'So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, shit. Needle out, piss. Needle in, fuck. Needle out, cunt. Until we were easy with the words.

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn't shock her. It wasn't vulgar. 'So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.

Art is a visual language, and Christians have a responsibility to learn that language.

The English word know is a translation of the Hebrew yada, which means to know by experience.

AutoCorrect can go duck itself.

That is how a man speaks. And that is why.

She wondered if she should have explained herself more clearly. She could not explain herself at all. There were no words, no permitted words, to explain anything that she wanted to say. All the words that could have communicated it had been banned, not only from her mouth but even from her mind. She was reduced to mere actions, which are both more and less than words.

There is no shape to anything except the shape it has. Every name we give ourselves is wrong.

We did not go out of each other's lives in a blaze of anger. We simply fell out of the habit of speaking. We lost our common language and so lost everything. There was nothing for us to say.

This is how we make sense of the world, by trapping it in words and sentences, by pinning it like a butterfly to a felt backcloth, killing it to keep it still, so we may trace its lines.

Our words will swallow us. We have spat them out, but in the end they will drown us

Text after text, scholars never tired of trying to compensate for sentencing women to eternal drudgery, which they themselves abhorred, by dreaming up fancy ways of labeling it, easing their consciences and allowing them to view their self-serving little world of men-gods as a fair, nay noble, thing.

It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.

Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words and not one of them can save me.