Quotes About Grammar

I've always had trouble with the subjunctive. I wish that were not the case.

For grammar it [poetry] might have, but it needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which, I think, was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man shoult be put to school to learn his mother-tongue.

Adverbs, we know, are meant to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. They help us understand things more clearly, more vividly, more... morely.

Not to age myself, but I remember vividly 'Schoolhouse Rock!' and entrust my grammar to it.

This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America.

The way that I approached numbers, think about them, the same as for language as well-acquiring vocabulary, understanding the grammar, the structures of languages, the rhythm, the music and so-on - these things obviously evolved.

With the violin, for example, one understands culturally that the sound comes from the instrument that can be seen. With electronic music, it is not the same at all. That's why it seemed so important to me, from the beginning of my career, to invent a grammar, a visual vocabulary adapted to electronic music.

It's always nice to end your sentences with an exclamation mark, and not a comma.

I have, for instance, silently corrected Jefferson's frequent use of "it's" for "its" and "recieve" for "receive

Waves, sky, trees, Essrog - I was off the page now, away from the grammar of skyscrapers and pavement.

there was language everywhere; you could read the city, the city was a grammar

But if we are to grasp the full value of the materials, we must note that myths are not exactly comparable to dream. Their figures originate from the same sources -- the unconscious wells of fantasy-- and their grammar is the same, but they are not the spontaneous products of sleep. On the contrary their patterns are consciously controlled. And their understood function is to serve as powerful picture language for the communication of traditional wisdom.

Nouns and verbs are the guts of the language. Beware of covering up with adjectives and adverbs.

I'm absolutely pedantic about language; it must go back to my schools.

I had English grammar book and started to teach myself. I read 'Catcher in Rye,' in Russian. I was amazed at freedom in 'Catcher in Rye!' Freedom to have those perceptions of life!

I admit I feel funny when I use the word 'whom' as I'm talking to my diapered children, but I persist.

Muddled syntax is the outward and audible sign of confused minds, and the misuse of grammar the result of illogical thinking.

Sex is a matter of biology, while gender is a matter of grammar, and there is no earthly reason why sex should be involved in gender distinctions.

Note in particular that a noun denoting a group of people takes which, not who. You cannot write *the battalion who had captured the fortress because a battalion, though composed of people, is not itself a person: write the battalion which had captured the fortress.

dissociate, disassociate Both are possible, but dissociate is more usual, and is recommended.

it is impossible to use that if the relative clause is non-restrictive – that is, if it does not serve to identify the thing under discussion, but only serves to provide more information about that thing. So, you must write the Suez Canal, which was opened in 1869, and you cannot write *the Suez Canal, that was opened in 1869.

I was a copy editor. I loved it. I love grammar. I'm obsessed. I was a bartender. I worked in a cafe. I was a dog walker. I was a babysitter. I was a tutor. Once I was asked to half-babysit, half-bartend.

Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language--not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue.

Never commence a sentence with And, But, Since, Because, and other similar weak words and never end it with prepositions, small, weak adverbs or pronouns.