Quotes About Language

Avoid mannerisms in attributions. People say things; they don't wheeze, gasp, sigh, laugh, grunt, snort, reply, retort, exclaim, or declare them.

We need to call sin what the Bible calls it and not soften it with modern expressions borrowed from our culture.

If the Mentalese story about the content of thought is true, then there couldn't be a private language argument. Good. That explains why there isn't one. (In Critical Condition, p. 68)

Probably only an art-worlder like me could assign deeper meaning to something as simple and silly as Tebowing. But, to us, anytime people repeat a stance or a little dance, alone or together, we see that it can mean something. Imagistic and unspoken language is our thing.

Imagine it's 1981. You're an artist, in love with art, smitten with art history. You're also a woman, with almost no mentors to look to art history just isn't that into you. Any woman approaching art history in the early eighties was attempting to enter an almost foreign country, a restricted and exclusionary domain that spoke a private language.

Latin is already a dead language, man... don't make it any deader.

Our language has lost its ability to convey the spontaneous.

There's a place beyond words where experience first occurs to which I always want to return. I suspect that whenever I articulate my thoughts or translate my impulses into words, I am betraying the real thoughts and impulses which remain hidden.

Though Marcus' essay extends over 13 pages of small text, at its core is a very simple premise: Contemporary American fiction has lost its innovative edge and its interest in language as art, and Jonathan Franzen is largely, if not exclusively, to blame.

Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing. Use 'beautiful' to describe a sandwich and the word means nothing. Since the war, there is no more room for inflated language. Words and feelings are small now - clear and precise. Humble like dreams.

Enhanced Interrogation is Dick Cheney changing a word, Dick Cheney comes up with a new word to cover his ass!

Wind does not need translation. It speaks the language of men, of animals and birds, of rocks and trees and earth and sky and water. It does not eat or sleep, or take shelter from the weather. It is the weather. And it lives.

This book was made possible by the letter "ø.

This book was made possible by the letter "ø." Also the letter "æ." The first time I saw them, I fell in love and just had to learn the language they belonged to. That language turned out to be Norwegian, with its rich history of folk tales about trolls and polar bears and clever young lads and lasses out to make their fortune. I only hope that I didn't offend my Danish blacksmith forbears by choosing to study Norwegian instead of Danish in college.

Don't say Fili, sister. Say Pili. In Tagalog, pili means to choose. Pino means fine. Pilipino equals 'fine choice.

Still, somehow, inexplicably, "man-hater" is a word tossed around with insouciance as if this was a real thing that did harm. Meanwhile we have no real word for men who kill women. Is the word just "men"?

We say "misogynist"; I've written that "misogyny kills," but the world falls flat on your tongue - it's too academic sounding, not raw or horrifying enough to relay the truth of what it means.

just the word "feminist" pisses you off. How dare we. Still, no name for the men who kill women because we have the audacity not to do what we're supposed to do: fuck you, accept you, want you, let you hurt us, be blank slates for your desires. You are entitled to us but we're not even allowed to call you what you are.

Still, somehow, inexplicably, "man-hater" is a word tossed around with insouciance as if this was a real thing that did harm. Meanwhile we have no word for men who kill women. Is the word just "men"?

Dating their daughters? Isn't it possible to encourage fathers to spend more time with their daughters without using language usually reserved for romantic relationships? Neutral, family-based rhetoric would probably be just as effective and would certainly be less, well, creepy. But calling daddy/daughter quality time "dates" speaks volumes about how young women are valued in the virginity movement--for their sexuality

It's not words that fail, it's the people who wield them. We have no power over life and death, we are subject to pain and disease and misery, but we command words. When you think about it, words are all we really have.

The words are vessels that are filled with experience that overflows the vessels. The words point to an experience; they are not the experience. The moment that I express what I experience exclusively in thought and words, the experience has gone: it has dried up, is dead, a mere thought. Hence being is indescribable in words and is communicable only by sharing my experience.

As with all semantic difficulties, the answer can only be arbitrary.

Worte sind Gefäße, die wir mit Erlebnissen füllen, doch diese quellen über das Gefäß hinaus.