Quotes About Syntax

Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.'

I'm partial to coffee shops, brain work, and poems on the page. I write after midnight. Sometimes, twisty syntax happens, and I surrender.

The rules of syntax and intonation and words matured over time into the system we have today because they were progressively refined by use and the forge of survival and reproduction - not because the brain got big and complicated for some other reason, and all of a sudden we discovered we could now manipulate symbols as well.

To a text-based life-form, unpredictable syntax and poor grammar is a source of huge discomfort. Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom. Poor syntax is even worse. Change word order and a sentence useless for anyone Yoda except you have.

If you don't know how compilers work, then you don't know how computers work.

I know what the structure of the language is.

about parataxis and hypotaxis (they either had something

ME: HOW MUCH WOULD WE RAISE IF EVERYBODY PAID $8.95 IN TAXES? ROUGHLY. COMPUTER: SYNTAX ERROR. ME: NO, A SYNTAX ERROR WOULD BE "ME HIT COMPUTER IN SCREEN WITH BIG ROCK." COMPUTER: ROUGHLY $2 BILLION. ME: THANK YOU.

JavaScript derives its syntax from Java, its first-class functions from Scheme, and its prototype-based inheritance from Self. But

The keywords async and await were introduced in ES2017 and provide new syntax that simplifies asynchronous programming by allowing you to structure your Promise-based code as if it was synchronous.

I read, I say. I study and read. I bet I've read everything you read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, The library, and step on it. My instincts concerning syntax and mechanics are better than your own, I can tell, with all due respect. But it transcends the mechanics. I'm not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you'd let me, talk and talk.

We need an inflation-generative grammar.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Trying to compose even a single sentence can have the same effect, as we try to juggle grammatical and syntactical alternatives plus all the possibilities of tone, nuance, and rhythm even a simple sentence offers. Composing, then, is a cognitive activity that constantly threatens to overload short-term memory.

One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.

You can say now, 'I dissed him' - to diss, I dissed him - or, 'Stop dissing her'. And that's the interesting thing, that it's the prefix that's become the verb! It's a most remarkable development.

Grammar includes all the principles that guide the structure of sentences and paragraphs: syntax-the flow of language; usage-how we use words in different situations; and rules-predetermined boundaries and patterns that govern language in a particular society. Mechanics, on the other hand, are ways we punctuate whatever we are trying to say in our writing: punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, formatting.

German wasn't good for conversation because you had to wait to the end of the sentence for the verb, and so couldn't interrupt.

A new language is almost a new life, grammar and syntax recast you, you slip into another logic and another sensibility.

The reason I am a political radical is that I work on syntax. If I worked on semantics (which in fact I do), I'd be a good Thatcherite.

Everything bows to success, even grammar.

Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

The flesh of prose gets its shape and strength from the bones of grammar.

The most common prepositional error is forgetting that the noun or pronoun in a prepositional phrase is the object of the preposition. The object of the preposition must be expressed in the objective case. Who can forget Jane Russell's line, in a 1970s Playtex ad, for a bra "for we full-figured gals." The preposition for mandates the pronoun us. But, then, Russell never was known for her pronouns.