Quotes About Grammar

Grammar, he felt, was a sign of competence, not of excellence.

People think of black English as ungrammatical, but it bears the same relationship to standard English as contemporary Hebrew does to ancient Hebrew.

I can't think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one's grammar. It's a kind of intellectual rot that sets in, I'm afraid.

Thou shalt not use the 140 characters limit as an excuse for bad grammar and/or incorrect spelling.

Homo sapiens is only man, in the fullest sense of the word, when his grammar contains no question marks, only exclamation marks, commas, and periods. And so today, at

And explaining them - I now feel myself duty-bound to do it, if only because I am the author of these records, to say nothing of the fact that the unknown is in general the enemy of man, and Homo sapiens is not fully man until his grammar is absolutely rid of question marks, leaving nothing but exclamation points, commas, and periods.

If subaltern voices are to be made visible in a fashion that parts ways with the cultural Left's humanist playbook of empathetic imaginings, a new revolutionary grammar is needed. Indeed such a grammar requires constructing new bonds of solidarity, based not on common enemies or goals but, as just underlined, loss and peril.

Than is both a conjunction and a preposition; it's a floor wax and a dessert topping.

Mathematics is a language. We want scientists to be able to read it, speak it, and write it. But we are are not training them to be grammarians.

His sentences didn't seem to have any verbs, which was par for a politician. All nouns, no action.

grammar will tell you how to write; but whether to write or not, grammar will not tell.

Brotha needed to buy a vowel and rent a verb, then get a roll of duct tape slapped on that broken English.

Except when it didn't, as in the case of names that already end in an s, such as Jones' book (a practice that is now out of style).

It indicates possession for plural nouns, between the end of the plural word and the s that follows, as in children's. Except when the word ends in an s, in which case it should come at the end of the word, with no additional s added ("the books' covers").

The Verbalist, 1894

Among people who might be described as having at least a passing regard for the English language, there are few instances of usage that evoke a desire to mutilate more than the perceived misuse of literally.

Or we reference Winston Churchill, who was famously reported to have written "This is the kind of tedious/arrant nonsense up with which I will not put," in response to an overweening staffer having removed a preposition from some of his writing. (However, as with many quotes that are purported to have originated with the former prime minister of Great Britain, the author was someone other than Churchill).*

Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression

If when we are taught English we are just taught the rules of grammar, it would take all our love of our language away from us. What makes us love a subject like English is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination is what makes a subject come alive.

Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect for I, also?'

I cannot recall a period when I did not draw; and at school, the studies that were distasteful to me, mathematics and grammar, were retarded by the indulgence of teachers who were proud of my drawing faculties, and passed over my neglect of uncongenial subjects.

The thing that's depressing is teaching graduate students today and discovering that they don't know simple elemental facts of grammar. They really do not know how to scan a line; they've never been taught to scan a line. Many of them don't know the difference between 'lie' and 'lay,' let alone 'its' and 'it's.' And they're in graduate school!

Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar.

E]in blasser, sozusagen grammatikalischer Schatten von Egoismus bleibt auf allem Tun haften, solange es keine Prädikate ohne Subjekte gebe.