Quotes About Language

A boa frase também é uma maneira de conviver com o inexprimível. Dá-se nome às coisas para domá-las.

Uma poesia não é feita de palavras. A poesia já existe. A gente só põe as palavras em volta para ela aparecer.

His eyes are huge and black. I think about desire. There are flickerings that occur, and we know very little about them. Millimetres of dilation are words in a language.

Somehow, in our language and in our psyches, we have come to equate good with light and evil with darkness. The symbolism runs deep. We see it in our poetry, our religion, our songs, and our cultural mythology.

When the fraught name God comes up in conversation or reading, I always remind myself that whatever the source or language used, we are at root on common ground—invoking the graced, unnamable source of life, the sacredness that cradles and infuses all of creation, on earth and beyond.

Freudian Slip: When You Mean One Thing And Say Your Mother.

Mer-people could be read as a colonialist term," explained the biologist.

I am a poet. Words are my currency.

Words are sometimes too small, too confining, to convey the depth of thought and strength of emotions. How does a whale communicate love, hope, fear, or joy?

Beard," said Patrick, which was their school slang for "I don't believe you.

Brackets come in various shapes, types and names: 1 round brackets (which we call brackets, and the Americans call parentheses) 2 square brackets [which we call square brackets, and the Americans call brackets]

Evidently an A level in English is a sacred trust, like something out of The Lord of the Rings. You must go forth with your A level and protect the English language with your bow of elfin gold.

I mean, full stops are quite important, aren't they? Yet by contrast to the versatile apostrophe, they are stolid little chaps, to say the least. In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort.

the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: "For every apostrophe omitted from an it's, there is an extra one put into an its." Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant

Using the comma well announces that you have an ear for sense and rhythm, confidence in your style and a proper respect for your reader

Sticklers unite, you have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion, and arguably you didn't have a lot of that to begin with.

If there is one lesson to be learned from this book, it is that there is never a dull moment in the world of punctuation.

the Law of Conservation of Apostrophes. A heresy since the 13th century, this law states that a balance exists in nature: "For every apostrophe omitted from an it's, there is an extra one put into an its." Thus the number of apostrophes in circulation remains constant, even if this means we have double the reason to go and bang our heads against a wall.

Those spineless types who talk about abolishing the apostrophe are missing the point.

As with other paired bracketing devices (such as parentheses, dashes and quotation marks), there is actual mental cruelty involved , incidentally, in opening up a pair of commas and then neglecting to deliver the closing one. The reader hears the first shoe drop and then strains in agony to hear the second. In dramatic terms, it's like putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I and then having the heroine drown herself quietly offstage in the bath during the interval. It's just not cricket.

one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burnout from all the thankless effort.

semicolons are dangerously habit-forming. Many writers hooked on semicolons become an embarrassment to their families and friends.

I have been told that the dying words of one famous 20th-century writer were, "I should have used fewer semicolons" – and although I have spent months fruitlessly trying to track down the chap responsible, I believe it none the less. If it turns out that no one actually did say this on their deathbed, I shall certainly save it up for my own.

So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician's assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete.