#language

I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English language until it starts to behave in some way that vaguely matches my intentions. ↗

— Michael Cunningham

#again #along #behave #closely #constantly

No," I replied testily. "I'm pretty sure 'digital' is Latin for 'fingeral,' so finger cancer equals digital cancer. This is all basic anatomy, Dr. Roland." The Dr. Roland told me that he thought I was overreacting, and the "fingeral" wasn't even a real word. Then I told him that I though he was underreacting, probably because he's embarrassed that he doesn't know how Latin works. Then he claimed that "underrecating" isn't a word either. The man has a terrible bedside manner. ↗

— Jenny Lawson

#grammar-humor #humor #language #equality

The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it - what is said. ↗

— Hans-Georg Gadamer

#hear #into #language #real #said

There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.' ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#beyond #books #eat #elephant #especially

Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that. ↗

— Temple Grandin

#college #designing #equipment #everybody #fact

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience. ↗

— Chinua Achebe

#experience #language #experience

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#dead #every #language #like #read

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language. ↗

— Werner Heisenberg

#atoms #cannot #here #language #ordinary

Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old: they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating. ↗

— Gilbert Highet

#big #branches #bud #changing #drop

The only problem was that I couldn't communicate with Dario. He speaks Italian and I don't. We had a translator the whole time. I just felt that something was lost with the go between. He was a delightful man, but I wish we could have spoken the same language. ↗

— Kim Hunter

#communicate #could #delightful #felt #go