Misuse Of Words Quotes & Sayings

The falsification of everything has been shown to be one of the characteristic features of our period, but falsification is not in itself subversion properly so-called, though contributing directly to the preparation for it. Perhaps the clearest indication of this is what may be called the falsification of language, taking the form of the misuse of certain words that have been diverted from their true meaning; misuse of this kind is to some extent imposed by constant suggestion on the part of everyone who exercises any kind of influence over the mentality of the public. — Rene Guenon

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides adduces a change in language as a major factor in Athens's descent from dysfunctional democracy through demagoguery into tyranny and anarchy: people began to define things in any way they pleased, he says, and the "normally accepted meaning of words" broke down. In his account of the Catiline crisis in republican Rome, Sallust has Cato the Younger identify the misuse of language - specifically the scission of word and meaning - as the underlying cause of the threat to the state. Society, Cato says, has lost the "vera vocabula rerum," literally, the "true names of things."18 In seventeenth-century England, Thomas Hobbes lived through a civil war he believed had been caused in significant measure by a war of words about religion - spread through the pervasive pamphleteering that printing had made possible - that had fatally weakened the linguistic common ground on which an ordered state depends. — Mark John Thompson

Pretty sure it was me." Simi grinned. "The Simi has that effect or is it affect on people? Affect. Effect. What is this difference between those two words and really, does it matter? Some people get so testy when you misuse a word. But I likes doing it. Language should be fun and so long as people know what you mean, what difference does it make? Really. Really. Really. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Satan tries to counterfeit the work of God, and by doing this, he may deceive many. To make us lose hope, feel miserable like himself, and believe that we are beyond forgiveness, Satan might even misuse words from the scriptures that emphasize the justice of God in order to imply that there is no mercy. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice. — Agnes Repplier

What we say, my child, has an impact on those around us. Words can spread darkness and hate or shed light and love. Don't misuse them, Daphne. — Robin Lee Hatcher

Like prepositional phrases, certain structural arrangements in English are much more important than the small bones of grammar in its most technical sense. It really wouldn't matter much if we started dropping the s from our plurals. Lots of words get along without it anyway, and in most cases context would be enough to indicate number. Even the distinction between singular and plural verb forms is just as much a polite convention as an essential element of meaning. But the structures, things like passives and prepositional phrases, constitute, among other things, an implicit system of moral philosophy, a view of the world and its presumed meanings, and their misuse therefore often betrays an attitude or value that the user might like to disavow.
— Richard Mitchell

Othalas: Words. What are they but shadows on a page or howling on the wind? They are as ever-changing as the mists below us and it is just as easy to lose sense of yourself among them. I am older than most sorcerers so what I know may, indeed, be close to the truth. Magic, wyrd, words, dreams, they all come from the spirit. Within them lie both power and peril. For to misuse any is to warp your sense of self. To lie in words, or in magic, or in dreams
that is how you become lost. The lights you see, they were lost long before they came to the Vale. — Robert Fanney

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully. — Margaret Heffernan

Noise is the typographical error and the poorly designed page ... Ambiguity is noise. Redundancy is noise. Misuse of words is noise. Vagueness is noise. Jargon is noise. — William Zinsser

Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names ... Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade. — R.A. Lafferty

We have no way of knowing what words you are going to misuse, so we cannot offer you a list. What we can offer, though, is a test that you yourself can apply to any word, whenever you are in doubt.
A Test: Do I Know This Word?
Ask yourself: 'Do I know this word?'
If the answer is no, then you do not know it. — Howard Mittelmark

The causes of all panics, crashes and depressions can be summed up in only four words: the misuse of credit. — Ludwig Von Mises

We have to restore the meaning of the word 'love.' We have been using it in a careless way. When we say, 'I love hamburgers,' we are not talking about love. We are talking about our appetite, our desire for hamburgers. We should not dramatize our speech and misuse words like that. We make words like 'love' sick that way. We have to make an effort to heal our language by using words carefully. the word 'love' is a beautiful word. We have to restore its meaning (31). — Thich Nhat Hanh

Such questions as "Why this universe?" are a kind of intellectual neurosis, a
misuse of words in that the question sounds sensible but is actually as
meaningless as asking "Where is this universe? — Alan W. Watts