English language Quotes
A curated collection of the best quotes about English language.
Top Quotes
“Linguistics”
“Great Britain”
“The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.”
“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”
“The English language is the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.”
“Now the use of English is really a reflection of chicness. Meaning is not always important.”
“Fussing about split infinitives is one of the more tiresome pastimes invented by nineteenth-century grammarians.”
“To boldly go is rhythmically very neat. The Star Trek scriptwriter hasn't been linguistically bold at all.”
“Wikicommons: English language”
“Wikisource: Category:English language”
“The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.”
“Five generations ago, Britain was ashamed to write books in her own tongue. Now her language is spoken in all quarters of the globe.”
“[A speaker who uses a multiple negative] spreads as it were a thin layer of negative colouring over the whole sentence instead of confining it to a single place.”
“[...] you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids [...], and no more legitimate than any of the other results.”
“English is a very powerful language, a colonizer’s language and a gift to a writer. English has destroyed and sucked up the languages of other cultures—its cruelty is its vitality.”
“The name ["split infinitive"] is misleading, for the preposition to no more belongs to the infinitive as a necessary part of it, than the definite article belongs to the substantive, and no one would think of calling "the good man" a split substantive.”
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
“The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish....”
“It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship that the two countries are supposed to have a common language. A Frenchman in America is not expected to talk like an American, but an Englishman speaking his mother tongue is thought to be affected and giving himself airs. Or else he is taken for a German or a Dutchman, and is complimented on his grammatical mastery of the language of another nation.”