Quotes About Language

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned.

I didn't decide to learn sign language, any more than I ever decided to enjoy a poem; it simply held me spellbound.

I before e, Except after c, Or when sounded as a, As in neighbor or weigh.

let's think about why you need a grammar book at all.

The most damaging mistakes a writer can make are probably misspelling or misusing words

among, between: Think division. If only two people are dividing something, use between; if more than two people are involved, use among. Here's a mnemonic: between for two and among for a group.

I love words," said Livvie. "I have always loved and respected words . . . since a long time ago.

Humans have this need to express themselves through their mouths, and he supposes that this is because they are so poor with their noses.

He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.

essay on the language of the dying

A dangerous combination for me. Language and passion.

Real thinking is possible only in the light of genuine language, no matter how limited, how primitive;

The truth is, we don't have an easy language for emotional life. That's why we have writers.

you could use your mouth to speak rather than to inhale.

life on Earth now. I don't always feel like being a beginner in a foreign language, continuously and mercilessly exposed to that special terror and despair, the deep inadequacy, that the unfamiliar syntax can engender.

He spoke in telegram-as if every word he used cost five bucks, and he only had a twenty in his wallet.

Peeta'n?n, Oyunlar'? resmetmek için bir f?rçaya ihtiyac? yoktu. Sözcüklerle de ayn? ustal?kla oynayabiliyordu.

probably no one would have ever even heard of a yak if it hadn't been about the only animal that began with a y.

So well intended, and yet so insulting

Did you hear that?" the duke asked with a wide grin, turning to Dare. "She said 'papa.'" The viscount returned the candy dish and tea tray to the relocated end table. "I distinctly heard 'baboon.'" "Hm, well, you're distinctly deaf.

No longer were there "doctors" of anthropology and physics and literature to offend the real doctors and confuse the public; they had put a stop to that, as they had put a stop to so many things that were unseemly and inappropriate.

A symbol is best answered by a symbol. Not by a . . . meat cleaver.

The language we use to describe and operate in the world affects the way we understand the world, our place in it, and our interactions with one another. Changing our language changes our world. This

This "domination by the author" has been, at least until now, the point of writing and reading. The author masters the resources of language to create a vision that will engage and in some way overpower the reader; the reader goes to the work to be subjected to the creative will of another.