Quotes About Language

Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.

Take away the right to say "f**" and you take away the right to say "f** the government."

There are no dirty words, only dirty minds.

Now, if anyone in this room or the world finds those two words decadent, obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual, the words 'to come' really make you feel uncomfortable, if you think I'm rank for saying it to you, you the beholder think it's rank for listening to it, you probably can't come. And then you're of no use, because that's the purpose of life, to re-create it.

It's the supression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.

Euphemisms chosen by fear are a covenant with hypocrisy and will immediately destroy the poem and eventually destroy the poet.

Whatever is language is poetic language and if the word required by the poet does not exist in his known language then it is up to him to discover it.

It's a secret code," said Calvin. "Girls are not not like boys. If a boy wants to kill you, he says 'I'm going to kill you.' If a girl wants to kill you, she says, 'We need to talk.' That's the code." I gasped. "Has a girl ever wanted to talk to you?" I asked. "Yup," said Calvin. "How come you're still alive?" I asked. "I vomited," said Calvin.

Massachusetts, which is hard to spell, it is hard not to

Bakbakbakbakbakbak!

B-R-B!" I screamed, which is faster to say than Be Right Back!

Did you know that the author William Shakespeare invented more than seventeen hundred words, including 'assassination' and 'bump'?

For Philosophers: No, the computer doesn't "think". Unfortunately, there's no better word for what it really does. We say "think" on the grounds that it's all right to say, "the lamp needs a new light bulb." Whether the lamp really *needs* a bulb depends on whether it *needs* to provide light (that is, incandescence is its karma). So let's just say the computer thinks.)

Man created words to free himself

The sense of differentiation is so acute in Yiddish that a word like, say, paskudnyak has no peer in any language I know for the vocal delineation of a nasty character. And Yiddish coins new names with ease for new personality types: a nudnik is a pest; a phudnik is a nudnik with a Ph.D.

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

Why is sholem used for both "hello" and "good-bye"? Israelis say: "Because we have so many problems that half the time we don't know whether we're coming or going.

I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called "cockamamies" because no one knew how to spell "decalcomania.

I think of a shmegegge as a cross between a shlimazl and a shlemiel—or even between a nudnik and a nebekh.

Yiddish is the Robin Hood of languages. It steals from the linguistically rich to give to the fledgling poor. It shows not the slightest hesitation in taking in house-guests—to whom it gives free room and board regardless of genealogy, faith, or exoticism. A memorable remark by a journalist, Charles Rappaport, runs: "I speak ten languages—all of them in Yiddish.

Yiddish became the Jews' tongue via the Jewish mother, who, not being male, was denied a Hebrew education.

There is a saying, "A patsh fargeyt, a vort bashteyt"—"A slap passes, but a word [that is, an insult] remains.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

Teach French and unteach sincerity.