#vocabulary

This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America. ↗

— William Labov

#african american #america #american #any #continental

In the younger days of the Republic there lived in the county of - two men, who were admitted on all hands to be the very best men In the county; which, in the Georgia vocabulary, means they could flog any other two men in the county. ↗

— Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

#any #best #could #county #days

Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images. ↗

— James Merrill

#could #fascinating #fit #hope #i

Sound is the vocabulary of nature. ↗

— Pierre Schaeffer

#sound #vocabulary

Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. Some say that the main cause of this very serious difficulty lies in the fact that human beings are basically made of clay, which, as the encyclopedias helpfully explain, is a detrital sedimentary rock made up of tiny mineral fragments measuring one two hundred and fifty-sixths of a millimeter. Until now, despite long linguistic study, no one has managed to come up with a name for this. ↗

— José Saramago

#vocabulary #communication

Metaphor isn't just decorative language. If it were, it wouldn't scare us so much. . . . Colorful language threatens some people, who associate it, I think, with a kind of eroticism (playing with language in public = playing with yourself), and with extra expense (having to sense or feel more). I don't share that opinion. Why reduce life to a monotone? Is that truer to the experience of being alive? I don't think so. It robs us of life's many textures. Language provides an abundance of words to keep us company on our travels. But we're losing words at a reckless pace, the national vocabulary is shrinking. Most Americans use only several hundred words or so. Frugality has its place, but not in the larder of language. We rely on words to help us detail how we feel, what we once felt, what we can feel. When the blood drains out of language, one's experience of life weakens and grows pale. It's not simply a dumbing down, but a numbing. ↗

— Diane Ackerman

#metaphor #vocabulary #experience

This document outlines our plan to perpetrate insurance fraud, insider trading, and character assassination. ...hopefully tripling our paycheck on this job. Okay, see? Those words I understand just fine. Use them more often. -Lieutenant Massey Reynstein & Captain Tagon ↗

— Howard Tayler

#money #plans #vocabulary #money

A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing. ↗

— Henry Hazlitt

#power-of-words #vocabulary #words #science

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#nostalgia #vocabulary #suffering

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate. ↗

— Mos Def

#art #articulate #good #good art #people