Quotes About Language

Too often students are being taught to read as if literature were some kind of ethics class or civics class—or worse, some kind of self-help manual. In fact, the important thing is the way the writer uses the language.

What's strange is how many beginning writers seem to think that grammar is irrelevant, or that they are somehow above or beyond this subject more fit for a schoolchild than the future author of great literature.

the truth is that grammar is always interesting, always useful. Mastering the logic of grammar contributes, in a mysterious way that again evokes some process of osmosis, to the logic of thought.

So perhaps the correct conclusion is that Green was less attuned to how people sound when they speak - the actual words and expressions they employ - than to what they mean . This notion of dialogue as a pure expression of character that...transcends the specifics of time and place may be partly why the conversations in the works of writers such as Austen and Bronte often sound fresh and astonishingly contemporary...

Every so often I'll hear writers say that there are other writers they would read if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us to read closely, to disassemble and reassemble them, much the way a mechanic might learn about an engine by taking it apart.

In the Fukien province of China, the Dutch learned the word tay, which means "tea" in the local dialect, and with this sound it was introduced to Europe. In fact, in Ireland and England it was pronounced tay until the start of the eighteenth century, after which the word was derived to tee and then tea—as we know it today.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

There arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind.

sejarah menjadikan orang bijaksana, puisi menjadikan orang fasih lidah, matematika menjadikan orang cerdik, filsafat menyebabkan orang berpikir dalam, moral menjadikan orang bersikap sungguh-sungguh, logika dan ilmu berpidato menjadikan orang berani mengeluarkan pendapat.

Cititul îl face pe om deplin, vorbirea îl face prompt, iar scrisul îl face exact.

Kebijaksanaan dalam berbicara lebih berharga daripada kefasihan.

Men create oppositions, which are not; and put them into new terms, so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning.

There are Idols which we call Idols of the Market. For Men associate by Discourse, and a false and improper Imposition of Words strangely possesses the Understanding, for Words absolutely force the Understanding, and put all Things into Confusion.

that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love.

His speech . . . well, she couldn't be quite so sure of that. It certainly wasn't the kind of speech to which she was accustomed} the vowels were either slightly foreign or slightly cockney. It was better, on the whole, to decide that they were foreign.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying he wanted me to make up dialogue.

We teach our boys to firebomb villages, but we won't let them write fuck on the side of their planes because it's obscene.

Bu daha çok Stephen Jay Gould'?n spandrellerine benzer; bir unsur belirli bir nedenle evrimleÅŸmiÅŸ ama insan?n bütününün bir parças? haline geldiÄŸinde önemli baÅŸka bir amaca hizmet etmeye baÅŸlam??t?r. () Ä°nsan?n politik davran???, ortaya ç?k??? yönünden doÄŸal olsa bile, onun öncülleri olan hayvan sosyalliÄŸine de hayvan diline de indirgenemez.

National identity begins with a shared belief in the legitimacy of the country's political system, whether that system is democratic or not. Identity can be embodied in formal laws and institutions that dictate, for example, what the educational system will teach children about their country's past, or what will be considered an official national language.

There are those who understand everything till one puts it into words

The Greeks did not understand each other any longer, though they spoke Greek.