#english

Prescriptive grammar has spread linguistic insecurity like a plague among English speakers for centuries, numbs us to the aesthetic richness of non-standard speech, and distracts us from attending to genuine issues of linguistic style in writing. ↗

— John H. McWhorter

#grammar

The English language is a work in progress. Have fun with it. ↗

— Jonathan Culver

#grammar #language #grammar

I guess that isn't the right word," she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that. This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and poems and plays about people long ago and far away, such as Ivanhoe. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#love

Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone. ↗

— F. Murray Abraham

#answer #days #english #english language #every

Your great country is wonderful at stealing pieces of history and using it for its own purposes, so there didn't seem to be anything particularly unusual about it but the English were incredibly exercised about it. ↗

— Michael Apted

#anything #country #english #exercised #great

Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there. ↗

— Joan of Arc

#english #except #france #god #hatred

So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education. ↗

— Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

#english #english school #forget #going #i

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names. ↗

— Mortimer Adler

#different #different kinds #distinct #distinguish #english

I don't know French at all. I took some lessons when I was younger but all I know are the numbers. I've been told basically everyone in Monaco speaks English because of it being a huge vacation spot so I'm excited about that. I might not need to learn French after all. ↗

— Freddy Adu

#after #basically #because #been #being

I am just like 99% of my friends in France, who say on their resume they can speak fluent English. In reality, they can't even count up to three. ↗

— Greg Akcelrod

#count #english #even #fluent #france