Quotes & Sayings About The English Language Changing

The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple "first" things. — Greg McKeown

If you're one of those people who worry that the English language is going to the dogs, linguists are of no help to you. Whatever it is that annoys you - double negatives, the demise of whom, the non-standard usage of literally - linguists will answer that a language is a living thing, and is always changing. You can't stop the process, so you'd better get used to it. — Gaston Dorren

There is no other word in the English language more life-changing than Hello — Patrick Stevens

I felt like a man who wakes alone on a deserted island to find that the rest of the world has stolen away in boats in the night. I felt like I was standing on a shore, watching small receding shapes on the horizon. I felt like I had been speaking English, and now I realized everyone else had been speaking a different language entirely. The world was changing. And I didn't want it to. — Lee Child

The English language on her tongue became a smoke-screen, without her eyes changing expression in the least. — Pat Conroy