Quotes About Language

The language of Cat's generation was far harder than that of her own, and more pithily correct: in their terms, he was a hunk. But why, she wondered, should anybody actually want a hunk, when non-hunks were so much more interesting?

It's really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry, said Angus Lordie. In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find.

To use strong language, she thought, was a sign of bad temper and lack of concern for others. Such people were not clever or bold simply because they used such language; each time they opened their mouths they proclaimed I am a person who is poor in words.

Words can make big things little, you know.

Exactement," said Chloe. "And in view of this relationship I feel that I can speak to you directly—without sautéeing my words." "Mincing," said Paul. "Perhaps, but mince is so rare these days—metaphors must keep up to date." She paused. "Does anybody eat mince any longer, Paul? You should know, I suppose.

Stand on your toe. That is what one said in Setswana if one hoped that something would happen. It was the same as the expression which white people used: cross your fingers.

Words were the very first bandage for any wound.

This was the difficulty with laws and with legal language: they used language which very few people, apart from lawyers, understood. Penal Codes, then, were all very well, but she wondered whether it might not be simpler to rely on something like the Ten Commandments, which, with a bit of modernisation, seemed to give a perfectly good set of guidelines for the conduct of one's life

Metaphors were so bloody: people shot messengers,, flogged dead horses, cut the throats of their competitors. Perhaps that was life; perhaps that's what it was really like.

This was the difficulty with laws and with legal language: they used language which very few people, apart from lawyers, understood. Penal codes, then, were all very well, but she wondered whether it might not be simpler to rely on something like the Ten Commandments, which, with a bit of modernization, seemed to give a perfectly good set of guidelines for the conduct of one's life...

but to the north there was a bank of cirro-cumulus, a mackerel sky, or Schaefchenwolken—"sheep cloud"—as she remembered her father calling it. For some reason he had used German when talking about clouds and sea conditions; an odd habit that she had accepted as just being one of the things he did. "The weather," he had once said to her, smiling, "is German. I don't know why; it just is. Sorry.

But only if youses shift yoursels and get in." He used the demotic plural of you, a common feature of speech in Scotland.

We French people sometimes appear rude but are not really intending to be rude. It is because…" He shrugged. "Perhaps it's something to do with our language. French may sound a bit arrogant sometimes. As if it's God talking, perhaps. You know how God talks. French suits him very well, I think." Annabelle laughed. "The English used to say that God spoke English. But we knew he spoke French all along.

Innocency: what a wonderful word, and different, in some indefinable way, from innocence. The difference, she thought, lay in the poetry.

And then," continued the clerk, "they send those students out at the end of their course and say, 'Go off and use those big words and long sentences to get all the good, high-paying jobs. And once you're in those jobs, always remember to use long sentences to protect your position. If you use long sentences, nobody will dare remove you. That is an important rule that we have worked out.' That is what they say, Mma—I have heard it on very good authority.

Another Huber, you see, Herr Uber-Huber. Bavaria's teeming with people of your name.' 'Hubers, yes,' said Herr Uber-Huber. 'But not so many Uber-Hubers, I think.' 'An important distinction, that,' said the Rector. 'Tell me, Herr Uber-Huber–are there any Unter-Hubers, as far as you know?' Herr Uber-Huber shook his head. 'I would say that Huber is the equivalent of Unter-Huber.

To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulged in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one's own dictionary, which is not a compliment whichever way one looks at it.

if you had no language, then what form did your thoughts take—if you thought at all? Of course you thought—she had never had any difficulty with accepting that—but how limited would your thoughts be in the absence of any words to express them?

Computers change the way we deal with words," Dr. Macgregor continued. "They somehow unlock language in the mind. But they do so in a very particular way – they induce Ã¢â'¬Â¦ well, I suppose we should call it logorrhoea, a sort of verbal diarrhoea. The words come tumbling out and people feel they can go on and on. And they do. Poetry has to be much more disciplined, much more concise.

Christine's tone bordered on the dismissive: there were ways of pronouncing cricket that indicated disapproval.

There are many words for push, take, shove, carry, load, and no words for love, or happiness, or the sounds which birds make in the morning.

There's a daughter, but she's not quite right, I believe. Unfortunately she's a bit glaikit." He used the Scots word for mental handicap. It was not a word that many used any more, preferring learning difficulties, the modern euphemism. But there was nothing unkind about glaikit, which survived because the policing of language had not extended to the Scots lexicon.

He's called Ottolenghi, that chef. And he deserves a tongue twister of his own. Lo, Ottolenghi lengthens leeks laterally. How about that? Or, Competent chefs count cous cous cautiously?

He said that it should be on the basis of need. People who couldn't come up with a good reason to drive would not be allocated a licence. They would have to use public transport." Ulf sighed. This was typical of the Moderate Extremists: an impossible policy, dressed up in Utopian language, and destined—if not actually calculated—to antagonise at least one large segment of the population.