Linguistically Quotes & Sayings

The emergence of a new term to describe a certain phenomenon, of a new adjective to designate a certain quality, is always of interest, both linguistically and from the point of view of the history of human thought. — Logan Pearsall Smith

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

The biggest challenge [for movie Agnus dei] - working in a foreign country with a predominantly Polish cast and crew - also proved to be the biggest blessing. Being surrounded by all this change , [both] culturally [and] linguistically, was a new and refreshing inspiration. — Anne Fontaine

I was a confident, outgoing little boy. If you're an only child, you're living in a very linguistically adult world, and you've got to keep up. So I did. Maybe I was slightly annoying. — Jack Davenport

There is a risk of becoming linguistically schizophrenic. Because your brain is so fluent in both languages, it is fooled into thinking that the structure you have put together in the target language is correct merely because it is correct in the source language. — Geoffrey Samuelsson-Brown

I come from a short fiction background, and my mom is a poet, so I've always read poetry; I've always had a lot of different influences both linguistically and musically. — Lorde

People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians- meaningless propositions that look meaningful to the linguistically naive. — Robert Anton Wilson

According to Abdul Kalam Azad, 'It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. — Taslima Nasrin

I refuse to be linguistically constrained by dictionary writers. — Amy E. Reichert

Europe has grown to 27 member states, encompassing an amazing diversity and richness. Some argue this is part of the problem: Europe is simply too big and culturally disparate to be managed properly. But look to India for an example of how social unity can be forged within a culturally, linguistically, and ethnically complex nation. — Klaus Schwab

The new culture war is about national identity rather than religion and 'transcendent authority.' It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: 'Who are we?' But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s. — E. J. Dionne

We're beings towards death, we're featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That's us. — Cornel West

And imagine acquiring a new language and only learning the words to describe a wonderful world, refusing to know the words for a bleak one and in doing so linguistically shaping the world that you inhabit. — Rosamund Lupton

It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is owing to the tact & judgment of the writers who know when
& when only - the disused term can be introduced, when it is artistically agreeable or linguistically necessary; & of course then the obsolete word becomes obsolete only in name. It is recalled into existence by the natural requirements of a powerful or subtle style. It is not a corpse disinterred (as with less skillful writers) but a beautiful body awaked from a long & refreshing sleep. — Constantine P. Cavafy

We're beings toward death, we're ... two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. — Cornel West

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

I mean, I have moments of huge frustration because of my inability to express myself linguistically as clearly as I would like to. — David Gilmour

A linguistically informed literary criticism is the key to resolving conflict and frustration, from psychotherapy and law to philosophy and politics. Call this the messianic theory. It is based on the idea that TO THINK IS TO GRASP A METAPHOR-the metaphor metaphor. — Steven Pinker

Mystical writing was indeed the forerunner of today's radical theology and deconstruction ...
Jacques Derrida can be described as an intellectual subversive whose work leads to the view that any text may be interpreted to mean almost anything, and as a mystic will.
Well, yes, mystical writing is indeed politically and linguistically subversive and always was so the mystic seeks to create an effect of religious happiness by liberating religious language from the Babylonian captivity of metaphysics. When the writing does succeed in melting God and the soul down into each other, the effect of happiness is astonishing. — Don Cupitt

And although [he] posed each as a discrete quandary, he knew that in reality each one was inseparable from the last, and that if it had been grammatically and linguistically possible to ask all of them together in one big question, then that would be the truest expression of why he was where he was. — Hanya Yanagihara

Particularly when I thought of myself as a Wallace Stevens acolyte, I wrote very difficult poetry and I was really guilty of not knowing what I was talking about. I was going for a kind of clever verbal effect. I was trying to sound linguistically or verbally interesting. I had a sense, I guess, from just reading a lot of poetry of how a poem would start and how it would end but really I didn't know what I was doing. It had very little connection to my life. — Billy Collins

I feel that my job, as an artist, is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally. — Gerald Stern

More than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author's job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion. — Orhan Pamuk

Alphabet Juice is the book Roy Blount was born to write, which considering his prodigious talent, is saying a lot. Did you know that the word LAUGH is linguistically related to chickens and pie? This is the book that any of us who urgently, passionately love words-to read them, roll them over the tongue and learn their life stories while laughing and eating chicken and pie-were lucky enough to be born to read. — Cathleen Schine

The use of anthropomorphic terminology forces you linguistically to adopt an operational view. And it makes it practically impossible to argue about programs independently of their being executed. — Edsger Dijkstra

Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost. — Willard Van Orman Quine

We have found other terms far less vague than the old ones to designate the same complaints. It's a great advance linguistically. — Jean Anouilh

What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination. — Terence McKenna

Islam is a civilization that is fractured linguistically, ethnically, sectarian-wise, as ours is. What bin Laden has done, though, is to identify a number of issues that are tangible and visceral for Muslims. His indictment list of Western support for Arab tyranny, our ability to keep oil prices too low - at least until recently - our occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. — Michael Scheuer

I think Yelena Akhtiorskaya is a genius. What she manages to do, linguistically and emotionally, in the span of a single sentence, is astonishing. — Keith Gessen

The Internet has become a bunch of interlinked but linguistically distinct and culturally specific spaces. There's some interface between them, but there's a lot less than there was years back when we were sort of pretending that this was one great global space. — Ethan Zuckerman

Our dreams and stories may contain implicit aspects of our lives even without our awareness. In fact, storytelling may be a primary way in which we can linguistically communicate to others - as well as to ourselves - the sometimes hidden contents of our implicitly remembering minds. Stories make available perspectives on the emotional themes of our implicit memory that may otherwise be consciously unavailable to us. This may be one reason why journal writing and intimate communication with others, which are so often narrative processes, have such powerful organizing effects on the mind: They allow us to modulate our emotions and make sense of the world. — Daniel J. Siegel

Learning grammar can be viewed as a game that a little boy plays with his father. Daddy talks, the boy listens - perhaps disobeys - and Daddy talks some more. All the while the boy is trying to figure out the grammar that can generate the sentences in Daddy's speech. The boy might occasionally talk back, but there is no guarantee that Daddy will pay any attention. Not that he is a bad father: recall from Chapter 5 that in some cultures, adults do not interact with children until they are socially and linguistically adept. To fully understand the game of language learning, then, Daddy can be assumed only as a rather passive participant. The goal of the game is to learn Daddy's grammar within some finite amount of time: nobody learns forever. — Charles Yang

I see a global ancient religion which was marked with its rebellious spirit against the higher authorities. It expressed itself temporally (Solar/Lunar), physically (Skulls/Tridents) and linguistically (Sun/Son/Sn) across the whole world. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

People fluent in two languages can lose either one after trauma, since first and second languages* draw on distinct neural circuits. Language deficits can even interfere with math. We seem to have a natural "number circuit" in the parietal lobe that handles comparisons and magnitudes - the basis of most arithmetic. But we learn some things (like the times tables) linguistically, by rote memorization. So if language goes kaput, so too will those linguistically based skills. More strikingly, some people who struggle to string even three words together can sing just fine. — Sam Kean

In the law, rights are islands of empowerment ... Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society. — Patricia J. Williams