Quotes About Language

ANASTROPHE  (ANA'STROPHE)   n.s.[  a preposterous placing, from    figure whereby words which should have been precedent, are postponed.

has been demanded, on one hand, that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language, and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety, why men do not rather speak as they write. In

ALKALI  (A'LKALI)   n.s.[The word alkali comes from an herb, called by the Egyptians kali; by us glasswort.] This

By tracing in this manner every word to its original, and not admitting, but with great caution, any of which no original can be found, we shall secure our language from being overrun with cant, from being crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation, which arise from no just principles of speech, and of which, therefore, no legitimate derivation can be shown.

Language is the work of man, of a being from whom permanence and stability can not be derived.

I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated.

APOCOPE  (APO'COPE)   n.s.[  figure in grammar,when the last letter or syllable of a word is taken away; as, ingeni for ingenii.

I consider the English alphabet only as it is English;

ANTIPHRASIS  (ANTI'PHRASIS)   n.s.[from    against, and uq  a form of speech.]The use of words in a sense opposite to their proper meaning. You now find no cause to repent, that you never dipt your hands in the bloody high courts of justice, so called only by antiphrasis.South'sDedication to hisSermons.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Ou is frequently used in the last syllable of words which in Latin end in or and are made English, as honour, labour, favour, from honor, labor, favor. Some late innovators have ejected the u, without considering that the last syllable gives the sound neither of or nor ur, but a sound between them, if not compounded of both; besides that they are probably derived to us from the French nouns in eur, as honeur, faveur.

C might be omitted in the language without loss, since one of its sounds might be supplied by, s, and the other by k, but that it preserves to the eye the etymology of words, as face from facies, captive from captivus.

C, according to English orthography, never ends a word; therefore we write stick, block, which were originally, sticke, blocke. In such words c is now mute.

of English, as of all living tongues, there is a double pronunciation, one cursory and colloquial, the other regular and solemn.

For pronunciation the best general rule is, to consider those as the most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written words.

That she thought me the prettiest creature she ever beheld. — Creature was her word — We are all creatures, 'tis true: But I think I never was more displeased with the sound of the word Creature, than I was from Lady Anne.

Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

Where true Love burns Desire is Love's pure flame; It is the reflex of our earthly frame, That takes its meaning from the nobler part, And but translates the language of the heart.

poetry: the best words in the best order." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

El lenguaje es el arsenal de la mente humana: contiene al mismo tiempo los trofeos de su pasado y las armas de sus futuras conquistas.

Although only breath, words which I command are immortal.

Marilyn Frye (1983, 88) describes anger as akin to a speech act: "It cannot 'come off' if it doesn't

The technologies we have available to challenge abuses of power—from complaints procedures to antidiscrimination policies to equality polices to the very languages of