Quotes About Language

The destructive potential of language is contained within the very nature of representation. Words, particularly nouns, force an infinite of unique objects and processes into a finite number of categories.

Perhaps it is the increasing abstraction of ourselves from the world, to which language contributes, that explains why "fifteen years ago people could distinguish 300,000 sounds; today many children can't go beyond 100,000 and the average is 180,000. Twenty years ago the average subject could detect 350 shades of a particular color. Today the number is 130."13 By naming the world, abstracting it and reducing it, we impoverish our perception of it. Language

Consider one of the most useful verbs you'll ever see: To say. Novices often use different words to say said, especially when writing dialogue. So they say that a president argues, declares, and cajoles. A ballplayer stutters, barks, muses, and mumbles. A philosopher cogitates, elucidates, complains, and demurs. These synonyms disrupt the flow of ideas. Avoid that distraction; just say said. If someone says something interesting, you don't need to dress it up with synonyms.

All writing explores action and change. The most important tool for that exploration is the verb. The verb makes sentences move.

The senses affect us so powerfully that we often use one sense to describe another. We use physical words—for heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness—to describe colors. We use visual words—for brightness and darkness, focus and blurriness—to talk about sounds. So we use metaphors to describe metaphors

aun cuando hagamos silencio, sutilmente estamos diciendo algo.

...words are slippery and tricky creatures, whether they drop from the tip of the tongue or of the pen, and when used in important matters, cannot be too carefully watched or too strongly manacled.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

Some translators turn an author's words from gold to stone, others from stone to gold.

I take the music of language very seriously. Like a heartbeat, it exists right below consciousness — it animates and infuses your language with life.... A good sentence should sound good and feel good and roll comfortably off your tongue, not simply serve as a conveyor for ideas.

Far far away, behind the word mountains, there live the blind texts. They live at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. One day a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn't listen.

Words are the indices of the mind.

Slang is the illegitimate sister of Poetry.

Certainly not quite oddly enough, a very great many prophets, cranks, busybodies, snobs, opportunists, simple folks (and other nonartists) do not know that they do not know precisely what the word Apocalypse means. By God, a good dictionary ought to get up on its hind legs and tell them, sometime.

What used to be offensive is now acceptable, and what used to be acceptable is now offensive... That's the danger of an overemphasis on political correctness. Let's not become so worried about not offending anybody that we lose the ability to distinguish between respect and paranoia.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.

"Silent" and "listen" are spelled with the same letters.

Meditation is the tongue of the soul, and the language of our spirit...

Next time, order a chimichanga — just because it's fun to say.

Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you, that by striving to perfect yourselves therein, you may prepare to ascend to him.

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

MENstrual cramps, MENtal breakdowns, MENopause — ever notice that many of women's problems begin with MEN?

Practice safe text — use commas and never miss a period.

The only difference between graffiti and philosophy is the word "[f*@%]."