Quotes About Language

In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait.

To the Nahuas, words were flowers, metaphors that gave birth to thoughts and actions.

The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man

He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish.

To see the beauty of the silent language that comes deep within a heart,only notice the words in type that stir the truth of imaginations dreams. Joseph

What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.

For a writer, only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one's drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one's language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.

Words, as is well known, are great foes of reality

A word carries far - very far - deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

The herbalist nodded, continuing to slowly stir the broth. "You are not the first laevvel I've known," he said. "Laevvel?" She'd never heard the word before. "Yes, from the Old Aldin laevvel bran'maur. It means 'beyond the loom of Braniel and Maurenna', in fact." He smiled and rested a hand on her head. "When the body and the true self do not match, it means. Like a girl born to a boy's body.

You are feeling better, no?' he asked. My mouth dropped open. 'I thought you didn't speak our language...' I said. He shrugged. 'I do not speak well, but I can say enough. I understand more what I hear than I am able to reply. To rule, you must learn. I study many languages. You learn more by listening than speaking, no? So that is what I do. I have learned much already by listening to your conversation with the sorceress. I know you false. I know you to be farmer boy, not prince.

plural is generally formed from the singular by the addition of s or es.

It is very easy to learn how to speak and write correctly, as for all purposes of ordinary conversation and communication

To use a big word or a foreign word when a small one and a familiar one will answer the same purpose, is a sign of ignorance. Great scholars and writers and polite speakers use simple words.

Every person of intelligence should be able to use his mother tongue correctly. It only requires a little pains, a little care, a little study to enable one to do so, and the recompense is great.

Shakespeare used the word 'flush' to indicate plenty of money. Well, just remember there was only one Shakespeare , and he was the only one that had a right to use that word in that sense . You'll never be a Shakespeare , there will never be such another— Nature exhausted herself in producing him.

This is a word that is a pitfall to the most of us whether learned or unlearned. Probably it is the most indiscriminately used word in the language.

A Pronoun is a word used for or instead of a noun to keep us from repeating the same noun too often. Pronouns, like nouns, have case, number, gender and person. There are three kinds of pronouns, personal, relative and adjective.

The Comma: The office of the Comma is to show the slightest separation which calls for punctuation at all. It should be omitted whenever possible. It is used to mark the least divisions of a sentence.

All the words in the English language are divided into nine great classes. These classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.

There are two guiding principles in the choice of words,—good use and good taste. Good use tells us whether a word is right or wrong; good taste, whether it is adapted to our purpose or not.

Some of the old similes which have outlived their usefulness and should be pensioned off, are "Sweet as sugar," "Bold as a lion," "Strong as an ox," "Quick as a flash," "Cold as ice," "Stiff as a poker," "White as snow," "Busy as a bee," "Pale as a ghost," "Rich as Croesus," "Cross as a bear" and a great many more far too numerous to mention.

Quintilian said—"Prefer the oldest of the new and the newest of the old." Pope put this in rhyme and it still holds good: In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, Alike fantastic, if too new or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.