Quotes About Language

A text conversation is a short exchange of often grossly truncated language that corresponds to a thought made all the more shallow by the process.

Why e-mail a full emotional statement when, instead, you can text a totally insignificant and ambiguous half-considered phrase?

Whenever I come across an Arabic word mired in English text, I am momentarily shocked out of the narrative.

I always have a problem playing text-heavy games. I'm a slow reader. I don't speak English well. As a kid in China, trying to play these games, I just wanted the text to go away.

My alphabet book at Duddingston Primary, Edinburgh, began traditionally with 'a is for apple,' but when it came to 'g,' it was 'g is for gas globe.' This was in the late Fifties; there hadn't been gas globes for decades. The textbook must have been 30 or 40 years old!

Texting is apocalyptic on some level. It's a reduction of things.

Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

'LOL' is one of several texting expressions that convey nuance in a system where you don't have the voice and face to do it the way you normally would.

Texting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise, but it is such a boon we don't care. We are all sneaks now.

Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.

Clearly texting, SMS and chat are very different than writing a letter or email.

Texting has definitely improved the communication between the deaf and hearing communities, but it shouldn't be... a substitute for learning the language to really connect with someone, especially someone you want to date or have a relationship with.

I still put punctuation in my texts. If it's an 'I', I make sure it's a capital.

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.

The only books I give up on are texts where the writer's attention is concentrated so heavily on narrative questions that his or her use of language becomes careless.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are many Aramaic texts from the time of Jesus, so one can get a pretty good idea of what the language of Jesus looked liked.

I find it hard to write really cool texts in German. At some point I had the feeling that it didn't work for me any more. So I'd rather not write any German songs at all than write uncool ones.

You start realizing that good prose is crunchy. There's texture in your mouth as you say it. You realize bad writing, bland writing, has no texture, no taste, no corners in your mouth. I'm a great believer in reading aloud.

I watched 'Drag Race Thailand' without any subtitles or voiceovers or anything; I don't speak Thai but I do speak drag, so I felt like I understood exactly what was going on, even though I couldn't speak Thai. I didn't understand anything they were saying but I knew exactly what was happening.

Hebrew is the language I use to thank the Creator and, also, to swear on the road.

I find it upsetting to see the erosion of manners. It's very scary. Where are the 'pleases' and 'thank yous?'

I'm born and raised in Mexico. I only spent eight months in the States, but definitely English is a really big part of my life, and I love it. Thank God my mom put me in American school because I'm able to be working in the States, and it opens a lot more doors being half and not being only one. It's cool because I get to turn it on and off.

Thank God, I have sort of a pan-European accent rather than Russian, which doesn't sound very pleasantly to Americans. For them, we speak with a rather rude pitch, and that might be our actors' problem there. Now I've begun working with language coaches in Los Angeles to get rid of the accent completely.

When I go to different countries, I want to know how to at least say hello and thank you. Language is a great hobby.