Quotes About Linguistics

I don't have any particular desire to see words making a comeback. They are of their era, after all, and that is their identity - they form part of the linguistic color of a period.

I do not speak Malayalam and am putting strenuous effort in developing command over the language.

I can communicate what I want to in Tamil, but I can't express myself in the language very well.

For one thing, my English isn't fantastic, and communicating in the dressing room is not always easy.

Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.

In my own writing, I avoid 'female' and try to say 'woman' because I feel that the word 'female' has connotations of not just biology but also non-human mammals. The idea of 'female' to me is more appropriate for a female animal.

My Finnish, it never really happened, but I'm good in Swedish.

I speak five languages: English, Swedish, French, Italian, and German.

The Swedish language combines the strong manhood of the German with the delicate beauty of the Italian.

My English is actually getting worse. We talk Spanish at home and switch to English only when we need it. Like when we go to the bank to get some money.

When I have to switch back and forth, it's not hard to go from the American accent to speaking Spanish, but then speaking Spanish and going back into the American accent is hard. I practice it so much. I talk to myself in the mirror all the time. It's like speaking multiple languages.

Growing up in Switzerland, you learn German pretty much from day one in school. You learn French and Italian as well. I took English as an extra language because I figured that was the language of the world.

What is the actual plural of "penis"?' I ask. 'Is it "penises"?' 'Or it could be "peni"?' offers Cassie. 'Like fungi.' 'I think it should be "pena",' I tell her. 'Although that does sound a bit like a type of pasta.' 'Ohh, ohh, I've got it,' cries Cassie. 'You know that "goose" becomes "geese"? What if one penis becomes many "poonis"?

Contact is not a verb and I said be brief." "Yes, sir. The last time you told me that I looked it up in the dictionary and I certainly don't want to contradict you but it says contact is a verb. Transitive or intransitive." "Contact is not a verb under this roof.

If you like Anglo-Saxon, I belched. If you fancy Latin, I eructed.

He dropped sheets on the fire, turned to look at her, and inquired, "Do you use 'infer' and 'imply' interchangeably, Miss Blount?" She did fine. She said simply, "No." "This book says you may. Pfui. I prefer not to interrupt this auto-da-fé. You wish to consult me?

Next thing we know you'll be teaching Podge to say 'mirror' instead of 'looking glass' and 'serviette' instead of 'napkin.

this development produced what is called Middle English, known especially from Chaucer

The usual -am ending signals the dir. obj., as does the word order, which is standard for Latin: SOV, subj.-obj.-verb (vs. English, which is an SVO language); final -m was often muted in speech, and sometimes therefore dropped in writing.

is a good deal of scientific support for the hypothesis that higher levels of thinking depend on language.

the Zulu language has 39 words for green.

the word tree and the word truth come from the same root.

He tells her how the word beech becomes the word book, in language after language. How book branched up out of beech roots, way back in the parent tongue. How beech bark played host to the earliest Sanskrit letters.

Jason scratched his head. You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, 'festus' means 'happy'? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?