Quotes About Language

Words differently arranged have a different meaning and meanings differently arranged have a different effect.

It was almost, with Mr. Waive, like the big words were his way of building a protective fence. Syllables to hide behind.

All those three-step things really do work," said Amy Emberling, a managing partner at Zingerman's Bakehouse, "but they also gave us a language we could use to talk to each other. Everyone in the different businesses had the same vocabulary, which helped create the culture in the community as a whole.

It's really difficult for me. Language, I am sorry that I haven't. I think I just always expected that you learn a word in place of a word and when I discovered how difficult the grammar was and learning that was very discouraging for me.

While money doesn't talk, it swears.

Money doesn't talk, it swears.

It's not easy to define poetry.

Tongue - a variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.

We can argue about their intelligence (which we would likely define in human-centric terms anyway), their ability to understand human language, or even the extent to which they really understand and know the world around them, but there's no argument that can convincingly show that animals don't feel pain, and that they have no interest in avoiding that pain. If anything, animals are more sensitive to the world around them than we are, given their heightened sensory abilities.

At every moment where language can't go, that's your mind.

Because when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing on through the veins to the root of each blood vessel.

Buoyancy, floating, weightlessness. Freedom. These are the words we use to talk about swimming. Is it a coincidence that this is also the language we use to talk about the lightness of being, the wellness of being, that we strive for in this corporeal world?

Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited.

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

as I reflected upon the matter, I discovered that these authors, in their books, were, after all merely making use of their own experiences or expressing ideas which they had worked out in actual life, and that to make use of their language and ideas was merely to get life second hand.

Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

He knew the way he spoke wasn't right, but it was the only way the words came. The thoughts in his head were precise and clear, their meaning was absolutely obvious. But when they emerged in the form of phrases, the superfluous husk simply fell away of its own accord and only the essential idea was left. Probably sometimes rather more fell away than ought to.

Be so kind as not to Frenchify. It really is a stupid habit to stick half of a French phrase into Russian speech," Zurov said irritably, glancing around at the speaker, although he himself interpolated French expressions now and again.

He knew the way he spoke wasn't right, but it was the only way the words came. The thoughts in his head were precise and clear, their meaning was absolutely obvious. But when they emerged in the form of phrases, the superfluous husk simply fell away of its own accord and only the essential idea was left. Probably sometimes rather more fell away than ought to." Excerpt From EF06 - The State Counsellor

Accident, agree, bagpipe, blunder, box, chant, desk, digestion, dishonest, examination, femininity, finally, funeral, horizon, increase, infect, obscure, observe, princess, scissors, superstitious, universe, village: those are just some of the everyday words that Chaucer introduced to the language through his poetry.

we use an English word for a farm animal and a French word for the cooked meat it provides.