Quotes About Language

Jason: Apparently the leaked Windows source code contains some pretty naughty language. Peter: Naughty language? Jason: Curse words in the comments. Peter: So when people are swearing at their PC, it's actually swearing back? Jason: Clever Microsoft.

Someone told me I need to stop dropping F-bombs. What the [f*@%] is an F-bomb?

Word is a four-letter word.

Tetragram is a four-letter word.

Did you ever notice: when you put the two words "The" and "IRS" together, it spells "THEIRS"?

I shall not make use of slang or vulgarity upon any occasion or under any circumstances, and shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. Indeed, upon second thought, I will not even use it then, for it is unchristian, inelegant, and degrading — though to speak truly I do not see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent without it.

In vino Veritas. In Aqua satietas. In... What is the Latin for Tea? What! Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

You can have my Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, dead, and lifeless hands.

You know you're a language nerd when you have a strong opinion about serial commas.

Save the bees, the trees, and the Oxford comma.

There's the Oxford comma, but I like the Shatner comma. It's when you pepper them in, so, you know where, to add, dramatic pauses.

Americans are the most inarticulate, illiterate people I've ever met, totally unlettered in the language of the heart, totally distrustful of whatever cannot be touched.

When wine has given indecent language birth, And forced the flood-gates of licentious mirth...

A metaphor is like a simile.

I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.

As to the Adjective: When in doubt, strike it out.

My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel Pepys, and Franklin Pierce Adams imitating Samuel Pepys. I was quite apt to throw in a "bless the mark" at any spot, and to begin a sentence with "Lord" comma.

An author plants the alphabet — and harvests flowers, nourishment, and weeds.

He transforms every bottle of ink into a scrolling trail of metaphors.

The truth is that if we are to have translation at all we must have periodical retranslation. There is no such thing as translating a book into another language once and for all, for a language is a changing thing. If your son is to have clothes it is no good buying him a suit once and for all: he will grow out of it and have to be reclothed.

I have remarked a perfect analogy in the language, movement of the body of a person, and his handwriting. The more I compare different handwritings, the more am I convinced that handwriting is the expression of the character of him who writes.

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!

Remember: "I" before "E," except in Budweiser.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.