#lang

Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the world." "By the way", Royce mentioned, "no one uses the words 'tis or hath any ore and certainly not thou, thy, or verily. ↗

— Michael J. Sullivan

#humerous #humor #language #ririya #change

No critic and advocate of immutability has ever once managed properly or even marginally to outwit the English language's capacity for foxy and relentlessly slippery flexibility. For English is a language that simply cannot be fixed, not can its use ever be absolutely laid down. It changes constantly; it grows with an almost exponential joy. It evolves eternally; its words alter their senses and their meanings subtly, slowly, or speedily according to fashion and need. ↗

— Simon Winchester

#lexicology #words #change

Sometimes I fear that even as a People when we take one step forward, we reel backwards ten times fold. I don't even think on the Precipice of Change will we truly move forward... It will most definitely take a Miracle. ↗

— Solange nicole

#philosophy-of-life #solange #change

...hear the language, this English, double-jointed as Bedivere's limbs. It only sounds awkward. In its ability to join one concept to another as with pegs, its dependent clauses, figures of speech and cadenced alliteration, a man can say one thing five ways and yet imply a sixth; can change meaning with an inflection, a pause or a deliberate misuse of a word, can mock, scorn and flay an opponent without uttering one overt insult. ↗

— Parke Godwin

#change

Zoë threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often! ↗

— Rick Riordan

#zoe-nightshade #change

How many Lojbanists does it take to change a broken light-bulb?” goes the old Lojban joke. “Two: one to decide what to change it into and one to decide what kind of bulb emits broken light. ↗

— Arika Okrent

#language #linguistics #lojban #change

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#exageration #language #on-writing #power-of-words #superlatives

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#power-of-words #communication

For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#inadequacy-of-words #language #communication

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#knowledge #languages #travel #understanding #communication