Quotes About Linguistics

You know you're a language nerd when you have a strong opinion about serial commas.

Since the Object of a verb in the active voice becomes the Subject of the passive form, it follows that only Transitive Verbs can be used in the Passive Voice, because an Intransitive Verb has no Object.

A trebuit sa ma multumesc cu a mi se spune Erra, caci atunci cand zeul limbii le-a dat francezilor alfabetul, litera h a ramas incuiata in biblioteca, iar francezii sufera de pe urma acestei pierderi si azi. Pentru ei, heroian e eroina, iar hotelul e otel.

I will use big words from time to time, the meanings of which I may only vaguely perceive, in hopes such cupidity will send you scampering to your dictionary: I will call such behavior 'public service'.

Prepositional verbs grow like toadstools. Once there was credit in facing a problem. Now problems have to be faced up to. The prepositions add nothing of significance.

I appreciate engineers, I wrote a book about their achievements, but I deprecate what they and other techies do to English words. Hey, these nouns and verbs aren't bits of silicon you can dope with chemicals (boron, phosphorus, and arsenic), drop into a kiln at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and slice and dice. Words breathe. They need TLC—you know

To possess another language is to possess another soul.

The word "bubble" is in the dictionary, for instance, as is the word "peacock," the word "vacation," and the words "the" "author's" "execution" "has" "been" "canceled," which make up a sentence that is always pleasant to hear.

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

It was written all in O, or nearly so, and all the O's are gone, said Andrea. When coat is cat, and boat is bat, and goatherd looks like gathered, and booth is both, since both are bth, the reader's eye is bothered. And power is power, and zero zer, and, worst of all, a hero's her. The old man sighed as he said it. Anoon is ann, and moan is man. Andrea smiled as she said it. And shoe, Andreus said, is she. Ah, woe, the old man said, is we.

Chimpanzees and the other great apes can learn four hundred or more words of American Sign

we developed this ability to communicate with words.

he couldn't think of a single word to rhyme with Enovid.

I've noticed you only speak ghetto half of the time. - Stephanie I'm multi-lingual, Rancher said. I followed him to the door, feeling jealous, wishing I knew a second language.

Nouns and verbs hold the power but syntax casts the spell.

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.'

There's nothing unusual about a single language dying. But what's going on today is extraordinary when we compare the situation to what has happened in the past. We're seeing languages dying out on a massive scale.

In Cardiff, I've heard a number of accent mixes that weren't previously heard before such as Cardiff-Arabic and Cardiff-Hindi. This pattern is repeating itself in many urban communities across the U.K.; people are especially keen to develop a strong sense of local identity.

Urdu can not die out because it has very strong roots in Persia. The language itself is not only just the language of the Muslims, but it's also the language of the Hindus.

I speak Urdu quite a lot, too, and I read a lot of Persian.

I want to learn how to speak Urdu. I find it very interesting and soothing to ears. It is very poetic too.

If you learn the auxiliary verbs in your target language, plus the all-important to be, to have, to do, and to go, you can very quickly express any idea.18 Just see the following chart.

The most complicated letters in English, like E and W, have four strokes. Many Japanese characters have more than 15 strokes

It is a remarkable phenomenon that children can learn to speak without ever being consciously aware of the sophisticated grammar they are using.