Quotes About Language

a handheld hose. I couldn't find in my dictionnaire the word for the specific kind of hose my European partner was used to, but Claude knew the right term because, as he told me, he had several Italian clients: a douchette anale.

Speciàl" is one of those elusive French words that means something (or someone is...peculiar. The use of it is one of the rare times that the French are noncommittal about their opinion.

Spécial is one of those elusive French words that means something (or someone) is…peculiar.

Sink-searching meant I had to expand my French vocabulary yet again. There aren't just sinks in France: there are éviers, lave-mains, bacs à lave, bassins, vasques, and lavabos. Each type of sink has its own raison d'être.

Only animals have rognons—humans have reins. And

Words have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbits and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.

i do not say 'good-bye.' i believe that's one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. it's not like you're given the choice to say 'bad-bye' or 'awful-bye' or 'couldn't-care-less-about-you-bye.' every time you leave, it's supposed to be a good one. well, i don't believe in that. i believe against that.

Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.

No objection would be made to teaching the natives of the country to read their own languages in the Roman character. No Arab has ever attempted to teach them the Arabic-Koran, they are called guma, hard, or difficult as to religion. This is not wonderful, since the Koran is never translated, and a very extraordinary desire for knowledge would be required to sustain a man in committing to memory pages and chapters of, to him, unmeaning gibberish.

To dictate definition is to wield cultural power

Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. —Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand

This [Welsh] language seems to be more particularly adapted for poetry; which, however extraordinary it may seem to some, on account of the multiplicity of gutturals and consonants with which it abounds, has the softness and harmony of the Italian, with the majesty and expression of the Greek.

Every decoding is another encoding.

To me novella is a stupid word. It's too much like Nutella. And goodness knows, I do love a chocolate hazelnut spread that advertises itself as a respectable breakfast food (part of this healthy breakfast). And do we really want to read a type of book that is similar to a sweet spread for toast? I think not!

He not only wanted to talk; he half-believed that, if he talked to his dog as a person, in time London would come to understand. It's the way a child learns the language. All sorts of things are said to a baby; and all at once he knows what is being told him.

Words his soul danced to.

Everything I ever valued before this was valued only because it was useless, because time spent upon it was not demanded but freely given, because to play is to be free. Free is not a word that exists here, I think, in their language. Nothing here is free of its own nature, its own law.

I have heard no word of my own language; I am rendered dumb.

I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface.

In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles.

God's first language is Silence. Everything else is a translation.

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.