 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
End |
Reviews |
|
|
|
. . . [QUOTES FOLLOW LINKS] see: ALLITERATION CLICHES COMMUNICATION ENGLISH GERMAN GRAMMAR IRONY LANGUAGES LATIN MAXIMS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS PROVERBS PUNCTUATION SATIRE SEMANTICS SPELLING STYLE VOCABULARY WORDS WRITING --- English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age. --John Adams (1735—1826) First VP and second President of the United States. In a letter to the President of Congress [5 September 1780]. The day of the jewelled epigram is passed and, whether one likes it or not, one is moving into the stern puritanical era of the four-letter word. --Noël Annan (1916—2000) English historian and writer. In the House of Lords [1966]; quoted in George Greenfield _Scribblers for Bread_ [1989]. One picture is worth ten thousand words. --Frederick R. Barnard In "Printers Ink" [10 March 1927]. Slang, n. The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. --Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] {Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_}. The world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-east Congo. "Ilunga" means a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. --Oliver Conway, BBC News [22 June 2004] The Spanish also left behind, in their branding signs and the embossing of saddles, a whole heraldry of ranching, and in conjunction with this they established the rodeo. The purpose of the rodeo was to round up, once a year, all the cattle that had run free or multiplied on the open range; to distinguish one man's herd from another, the yearling calves were branded with the owner's initials or some chosen emblems registered with the governor of each province. While the word "cowboy" is a direct translation of vaquero, much of the language of ranching, and the Spanish words for the kind of country it was done in, have passed over to the present-day practitioners and, indeed, to most children brought up in the Southwest: corral, mesa, arroyo, patio, adobe, mustang, sombrero, desperado, poncho, alfalfa, bronce. By small changes or abbreviation, other Spanish words were naturalized in English: "stampede" for estampida, "lariat" for (la) reata, "lasso" for lazo, "chaps" for chaperajos, which protected the wearer against the desert scrub called "chaparral" (chaparro). The word "cinch," until fairly recently a common slang word for something quickly or easily done, derives from the Spanish word for the saddle girth, cincha. When it was securely fastened, it was said to be ''cinched." --Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004) British-born American broadcater and journalist. _America_ [1973] Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public. Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire. --George W. Crane Quoted in Bob Kelly _Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes_, p. 199 [2003]. She dealt her pretty words like blades, As glittering they shone, And every one unbarred a nerve Or wantoned with a bone. --Emily Dickinson (1830—1886) American poet. "She dealt her pretty words like blades" In _Further Poems_ [1929]. ^ T.S. Eliot (1888—1965) American-born poet who won the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature. On his way to Stockholm for the Nobel prize ceremony, Eliot was interviewed by a reporter who asked him for which of his works the prize had been awarded. Eliot replied that he believed it was for the entire corpus. 'And when did you publish that?' asked the reporter. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ ^ At a meeting of a Parisian literary society Franklin found himself a bit at sea as flowery compliments in French were exchanged. He decided it would be safest to clap only when he saw a lady of his acquaintance applauding. After the gathering was over, Franklin's little grandson said, 'But, Grandpapa, you always applauded, and louder than anyone else, when they praised you.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms. --Galen (129—199) Greek physician, anatomist, and writer on medicine and philosophy. _On the Natural Faculties_ ^ W. S. Gilbert was standing outside his club one day, when a stranger approached him saying, 'I beg your pardon, sir, but do you happen to know a gentleman, a member of this club, with one eye called Mathew?' Gilbert replied: 'I can't say I do.' Then, after a further pause, 'What is his other eye called?' _The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Sport and Show Business" ^ Nouns and verbs are almost pure metal; adjectives are cheaper ore. --Maria Gilchrist (1893—?) American author. Quoted by Leonora Speyer in _The Saturday Review of Literature_ [1946]. ^ Knut Hamsun (1859—1952) Norwegian author, winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize for Literature. During the winter of 1894—95 Hamsun visited Paris for the first time. On his return home someone asked him, "At the beginning, didn't you have trouble with your French?" "No," replied Hamsun, "but the French did." --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ In all the grammar schools of England children leave French and construe in English. --Ranulf Higden (c. 1280—1364) English monk and chronicler. _Polychronicon_ [1340s], in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 211. Cohan & Major add: The change from French as the lingua franca to vernacular English was rapid. In the 1360s the lord chancellor began to open Parliament in English, and in 1362 a petition urged that pleading in the law courts should be in English because French was too little known. - Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life — are alike forbidden. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858] I would never use a long word where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who 'ligate' arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894) American physician, poet, and essayist. In a lecture at Harvard University [6 November 1867]. - I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism. --P.D. [Phyllis Dorothy] James (1920— ) English writer of detective stories. In "Paris Review" [1995]. Language is the dress of thought. --Samuel Johnson (1709—1784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. "Cowley," _Lives of English Poets_ [1781] In my youth ... there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl'. --Tom Lehrer (1928— ) American songwriter and satirist. Quoted in _Washington Post_ [3 January 1982]. - Henry: Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter, Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered. By law she should be taken out and hung, For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue. Eliza: Aaoooww! Henry imitating her: Aaoooww! Heaven's! What a noise! This is what the British population, Calls an elementary education. Pickering: Oh, Counsel, I think you picked a poor example. Henry: Did I? Hear them down in Soho square, Dropping "h's" everywhere. Speaking English anyway they like. You sir, did you go to school? Man: Wadaya tike me for, a fool? Henry: No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction, by now, Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do, Why, you might be selling flowers, too! Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse, Hear a Cornishman converse, I'd rather hear a choir singing flat. [. . . ] An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him, The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! --Alan Jay Lerner (1918—1986) American playwright and lyricist. (Music by Frederick Loewe) "Why Can't the English?" from the 1956 play _My Fair Lady_ - He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. --Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865) American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865]. On a fellow lawyer, quoted in Abraham Gross _Lincoln's Own Stories_ [1912]. Deeds are better things than words are, Actions mightier than boastings. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882) American poet. _The Song of Hiawatha_ [1855] Language is civilization itself. The Word, even the most contradictory word, binds us together. Wordlessness isolates. --Thomas Mann (1875—1955) German novelist. _The Magic Mountain_ [1924], ch. 6, "A Good Soldier" Many women, particularly young women, have claimed the right to use the most explicit sex terms, including extremely vulgar ones, in public as well as private. But it is men, far more than women, who have been liberated by this change. For now that women use these terms, men no longer need to watch their own language in the presence of women. But is this a gain for women? --Margaret Mead (1901—1978) American anthropologist. Soundbite and slogan, strapline and headline, at every turn we meet hyperbole. The soaring inflation of the English language is more urgently in need of control than the economic variety. --Trevor Nunn (1940— ) British theatre director. In "Evening Standard" [3 June 1999]. If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950) English novelist. "Politics and the English Language" [April 1946] - Dorothy Parker was at a party in New York where an American actor who had appeared in a play in London was speaking at length about his experiences. His speech was full of Briticisms, and he kept referring to his 'shedules.' Finally, Miss Parker interrupted. 'I think you're full of skit,' she said. That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them. --Dorothy Parker (1893—1967) American critic and humorist. Quoted in Alexander Woollcott _While Rome Burns_ [1934]. - How very commonly we hear it remarked that such and such thoughts are beyond the compass of words. I do not believe that any thought, properly so called, is out of the reach of language. . . . I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words. --Edgar Allan Poe (1809—1849) American poet and short-story writer. _Marginalia_ [1844—1849] As the intercourse between this part of Great Britain and the capital daily increases, both on account of business and amusement, and must still go on increasing, gentlemen educated in Scotland have long been sensible of the disadvantages under which they labour, from their imperfect knowledge of the English tongue, and the impropriety with which they speak it. --Regulations of the Select Society [1761] _Scots Magazine_ V. 23 [1761] p. 389 - One of our defects as a nation is the tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words'. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you a 'weasel word' after another, there is nothing left of the other. --Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919) American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909]. Speech in St. Louis [31 May 1916]. Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. --Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919) American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909]. In an article in "Kansas City Star" [27 April 1918]. - Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought. --Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917—2007) American historian. Brian Lamb television interview, C-SPAN [10 May 1998]. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. --William Strunk Jr. (1869—1946) American teacher and editor. _The Elements of Style_ [1918] ^ --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809—1892) British poet, poet laureate [1850—1892] Tennyson was entertaining a Russian nobleman on his house on the Isle of Wight. One morning the Russian set off on a shooting expedition, returning later that day with the proud news that he had shot two peasants. Tennyson politely corrected his guest's pronunciation: 'You mean two pheasants,' he said. 'No,' replied the Russian,' 'two peasants. They were insolent, so I shot them.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ James Whistler (1834—1903) American painter. Whistler, priding himself on his fluency in French, insisted on doing the ordering in a fashionable Paris restaurant. His companion tried to intervene and was told, 'I am quite capable of ordering a meal in France without your assistance.' 'Of course you are,' said his friend placatingly, 'but I just distinctly heard you order a flight of steps.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language. --Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Canterville Ghost_, 2 [1887] The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. --Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951) Austrian philosopher. _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1922] Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. --P.G. [Pelham Grenville] Wodehouse (1881—1975) English humorist; American citizen from 1955. _The Luck of the Bodkins_ [1936] -- A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Englishmen are waiting. "Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?" he says. The two Englishmen just stare at him. "Excusez-moi, parlez vous Francais?" The two continue to stare. "Parlare Italiano?" No response. "Hablan ustedes Espanol?" Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted. The first Englishman turns to the second and says, "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language...." "Why?" says the other, "That bloke knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good." ----- acrid [AK-rid], adjective: 1. Sharp and harsh, or bitter to the taste or smell; pungent. 2. Caustic in language or tone; bitter. dieresis (noun) A mark ( ¨ ) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate that they are to be pronounced as separate sounds rather than a diphthong, as in naïve. Synonyms: umlaut, diaeresis heterophemy (noun) ['het-ê-rê-fee-mi] The inadvertent use of one word or phrase when another is intended. polyglot (noun) A person who speaks two or more languages. shibboleth (noun) ['shi-bê-leth] A catchword, password, or any test of authenticity. A language or dialect that distinguishes a group and can be used as a test of membership. tittle (noun) ['tit-êl] 1. A small jot, the dot of an [i], cross on a [t], the beard on [ç], or a diacritic such as the tilde on [ñ]; 2. Minute, incredibly tiny, smaller even than an iota-indeed, an iota (Greek short [i]) is capped by a tittle.) vernacular (noun) [vêr-'næ-kyê-lêr] (1) The colloquial spoken language as distinguished from the literary written language; (2) a local regional or professional dialect end page | KARMA - KENTUCKY | KINDNESS | KILL - KU KLUX KLAN | KNOWLEDGE | LABELS - LAS VEGAS | LANGUAGE | LATIN - LAUGHTER | LAW (THE) - LAWYERS | LAZINESS - LEGACIES | LEARNING | LEISURE - LIBERALS | LIBERTY - LIES | LIFE | LIFESTYLE - LIMITATIONS | LINCOLN (ABRAHAM) - LITTERING | LIVE - LONDON | LONELINESS - LOUISIANA | LOVE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LOVE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LOVE & MARRIAGE - LYNCHING | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
||
