David Crystal Quotes & Sayings

You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time. — David Crystal

Joke exchanges are carried on in deadly earnest, like a verbal duel-mouth-to-mouth combat. Bang, bang: you're (linguistically) dead. — David Crystal

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear. — David Crystal

Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument. — David Crystal

Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language. — David Crystal

Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language. — David Crystal

There is little scientific data on the point, but evidently people do speak to themselves. — David Crystal

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. — David Crystal

I believe that any form of writing exercise is good for you. I also believe that any form of tuition which helps develop your awareness of the different properties, styles, and effects of writing is good for you. It helps you become a better reader, more sensitive to nuance, and a better writer, more sensitive to audience. Texting language is no different from other innovative forms of written expression that have emerged in the past. It is a type of language whose communicative strengths and weaknesses need to be appreciated. — David Crystal

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject. — David Crystal

Here is a rewriting of the British national anthem, by 'Camille, Australia'. It is, she explains, chiefly for the benefit of Microsoft Word and Outlook Express users:

Gd CTRL-S r gr8sh Qun.
Long liv r nobl Qun.
Gd CTRL-S the. Qun!
ALT-S hr vktrES,
HpE & glrES,
Lng 2 rain ovR S
Gd CTRL-S th. Qun! — David Crystal

Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible. — David Crystal

The internet is an amazing medium for languages, — David Crystal

The chief characteristic of English grammar is the way words are arranged within sentences, and the technical term for this process is syntax. It — David Crystal

Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using. — David Crystal

Swearing makes an excellent relief mechanism — David Crystal

At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects. — David Crystal

Language death is like no other form of disappearance. When people die, they leave signs of their presence in the world, in the form of their dwelling places, burial mounds, and artefacts - in a word, their archaeology. But spoken language leaves no archaeology. When a language dies, which has never been recorded, it is as if it has never been. — David Crystal

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread. — David Crystal

The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography. — David Crystal

The story of the English writing system is so intriguing, and the histories behind individual words so fascinating, that anyone who dares to treat spelling as an adventure will find the journey rewarding. — David Crystal

Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster. — David Crystal

Faced with the sentence therapistsneedspecialtreatment we need to know if this is a text about sex crimes or about speech pathology before we can correctly read it aloud. — David Crystal

English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background. — David Crystal

Language changes and moves in a different direction evolving all the time. Where a lot of people see deterioration, I see expressive development — David Crystal

In effect we are, bending and breaking the rules of the language. And if someone were to ask why we do it, the answer is simply: for fun — David Crystal

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.' — David Crystal

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like. — David Crystal

Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language. — David Crystal

Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly. — David Crystal

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it. — David Crystal

It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project. — David Crystal

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood. — David Crystal

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices. — David Crystal

The only languages which do not change are dead ones. — David Crystal

It hasn't been a problem with Ben, I think we worked together very well, we don't have rows. — David Crystal

Imagine, I said, what could happen if English continues to grow as it has. Maybe one day it will be the only language left to learn. If that happens, I concluded, it will be the greatest intellectual disaster that the planet has ever known. — David Crystal