Quotes About Language

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They cannot spell it because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants – and not all of them – have any agreed speech value. Consequently no man can teach himself what it should sound like from reading it; and it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.

Style is a sort of melody that comes into my sentences by itself. If a writer says what he has to say as accurately and effectively as he can, his style will take care of itself.

The British and Americans are two people separated by a common language.

A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere - no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift to articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton...

The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

The reason why the continental European is, to the Englishman or American, so surprisingly ignorant of the Bible, is that the authorized English version is a great work of literary art, and the continental versions are comparatively artless.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

I need not repeat familiar arguments about the waste of teachers' time, and the difficulties thrown in the way of English children trying to learn their own language; or the fact that nobody without a visual memory for words ever succeeds in spelling conventionally, however highly educated he or she may be.

Our language is the language of Shakespeare, Thompson and Milton, as we sit and croon like bilious pigeons.

Nothing that's worth saying is proper.

But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her. It's filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.

The great difficulty with communication is the illusion it has been accomplished.

Ive taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood. I might as well be a block of wood.

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

The greatest fallacy with communication, is the belief that it has actually occurred.

The simple biggest problem in communication is the illusion that has taken place.

The problem with communication…is the illusion that is has been accomplished.

When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to hear '27 months.' 'He's two' will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.

Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?

Everyone smiles in the same language.

I am is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that I do is the longest sentence?

There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. 'Tom, I'd like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.' These days, Trajedi.