Quotes About Language

The sign of a truly totalitarian culture is that important truths simply lack cognitive meaning and are interpretable only at the level of 'Fuck You', so they can then elicit a perfectly predictable torrent of abuse in response. We've long ago reached that level.

truisms at least have the merit of being true, which distinguishes them from a good deal of political discourse. And

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

if people want to be confused, they will always succeed, no matter what term you use.

It takes a phrase to produce a lie and ten minutes to decode it.

essential differences between generative grammar and structural linguistics.

Morris Halle was already working on a generative phonology of Russian in the 1950s, and we also worked together on the generative phonology of English, at first jointly with Fred Lukoff.

language acquisition is not a step-by-step process of generalization, association, and abstraction, going from linguistic data to the grammar, and that the subtlety of our understanding transcends by far what is presented in experience.

Syntactic Structures and LSLT.

the autonomy of syntax;

It is, indeed, virtual dogma that the function of language is communication.

The question is whether distinct cognitive structures can be identified, which interact in the real use of language and linguistic judgments, the grammatical system being one of these. Certainly

Whenever I hear a four-syllable word I get skeptical, because I want to make sure you can't say it in monosyllables.

In the West yes is yes and no is no. But when Arabs hear the word no from an American they often take it as an insult. That is because Arabs don't say the word no directly. Very often they say in Shaalah when they mean no. In dealing with Westerners, an Arab may say yes' when they really don't mean it, and that gets them in a lot of trouble with Westerners.

The internet is the superhighway of grammatically incorrect moral outrage. EPHRON:

The Flavour of France.

I didn't speak French well at all and did these terrible interviews in pigeon French.

He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.

Words have magic. Spells and curses. Some of them, the best of them, once said change everything.

Don't 'honey' me in that southern-fried twang.

Don't say hit and mountain in the same sentence.

You don't want to get in the habit of overusing the word "fuck" as an adjective. You'll miss the vast variety of its uses.

Damn skippy." "Who is Skippy? Why are you mad at him?" "It's an expression. Like bet your ass." "People are always betting their asses. Language is fun.

But very affectionately. Since you're up on the language, why don't we finish the night off by… She rose up to whisper in his ear, ending the provocative Italian with a quick nip on his lobe. Ummm. He didn't have a clue what she'd said, but the blood had cheerfully drained out of his head. I think I'm going to need a translation on that one.