Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar. — David Crystal
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street. — E. B. White
My grammar be's ebonics, gin tonics, and chronic. — Nelly
Be able to correctly pronounce the words you would like to speak and have excellent spoken grammar. — Marilyn vos Savant
This was bad grammar of course, but that is how beavers talk when they are excited; I mean, in Narnia--in our world they usually don't talk at all. - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe — C. S. Lewis
Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage. — Marilyn vos Savant
Good English, well spoken and well written will open more doors than a college degree... Bad English will slam doors you don't even know exist. — William Raspberry
The top 10 verbs in the English language are all irregular, even though irregular verbs make up only 3 per cent of the language. — Erez Lieberman Aiden
You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country. — Robert Frost
Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks. — Jimmy Breslin
My grandmother was an English teacher for a while. And she stressed to me the importance of reading, being able to articulate well. — Kevin Gates
We have this wonderful language and we don't appreciate it. That's old-fashioned me, but when I went to school, everyone had elocution lessons, not to sound posh but so you could be understood. — Penelope Keith
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. — Walt Whitman
The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib. — Robert Burchfield
English Language Quotes
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. — Ronald Reagan
The basis of any independent government is a national language, and we can no longer continue aping our former colonizers ... those who feel they cannot do without English can as well pack up and go. — Jomo Kenyatta
Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language. So we're talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people's lives in history. — Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.
In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? — Marlene Dietrich
I can fluently speak five languages: English, emoji, sexting, sarcasm and sass. — Tyler Oakley
I was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power. — Ngugi wa Thiong'o
It seems to me that once if your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to.
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. — Booker T. Washington
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
FEAR is an acronym in the English language for 'False Evidence Appearing Real'. — Neale Donald Walsch
Like, What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside? — Jackson Browne
English Writing Quotes
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. — Mark Twain
All the youth now in England of free men, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it, be set to learn as long as they are not fit for any other occupation, until they are able to read English writing well. — Alfred the Great
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. — Ernest Hemingway
I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer. — Fred Savage
We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it. — P. D. James
Write. Don't talk about writing. Don't tell me about your wonderful story ideas. Don't give me a bunch of "somedays." Plant your ass and scribble, type, keyboard. If you have any talent at all, it will leak out despite your failure to pay attention in English. — Glen Cook
I cannot write in English, because of the treacherous spelling. When I am reading, I only hear it and am unable to remember what the written word looks like. — Albert Einstein
You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never. — Tony Dungy
We all know the old expression, "I'll work my thoughts out on paper." There's something about the pen that focuses the brain in a way that nothing else does. That is why we must have more writing in the schools, more writing in all subjects, not just in English classes. — David McCullough
American English Quotes
All I can say in my solitude is, May Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one - American, English, Turk - who will help to heal this open sore of the world. — David Livingstone
The most significant event of the 20th century will be the fact that the North Americans speak English. — Otto von Bismarck
Eventually, in '84, we made a film for a little over a million dollars - with American actors that was shot in English - that was shown in Finland A little action film called Born American. — Renny Harlin
The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
We have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house. — Theodore Roosevelt
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
Assange is not a 'journalist' any more than the 'editor' of al-Qaeda's new English-language magazine 'Inspire' is a 'journalist.' He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. — Sarah Palin
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman. — Ambrose Bierce
I could speak to you and say, 'Laytay-chai, paisey, paisey.' ... Why aren't you responding? Oh, you don't speak Swahili. Well, I've got news for you. The dog doesn't speak English, or American, or Spanish, or French. — Ian Dunbar
English Words Quotes
Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no 'Nigerians' in the same sense as there are 'English,' 'Welsh,' or 'French.' The word 'Nigerian' is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not. — Obafemi Awolowo
My favorite three words in the English language are: ’I don’t know’, because every time I say them, I learn something new. — Timothy Leary
Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons. — Aldous Huxley
The four most important words in the English language are, "What do you think?" Listen to your people and learn. — J. W. "Bill" Marriott, Jr.
The most powerful words in English are, 'Tell me a story.' — Pat Conroy
The Latin root of 'cult' means 'grow'. This Latin root is the word origin of a good number of English words, including culture, cultivate and horticulture. — Robert Breedlove
The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'. — Maxim Gorky
Sometimes I don't use the words 'will' and 'want' in the right way. The German word 'will' is the English word 'want,' so that's a little bit of the problem. — Jurgen Klopp
I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew. — Michelle Rodriguez
The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think. — Colin Firth
Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. — William Safire
Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them. — Robert Graves
I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on thesimple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad. — Bernadette Devlin
Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. — Bill Bryson
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common. — Bill Bryson
Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar. — E. B. White
As a former English professor, I can assure you that grammar is the qualitative interpolation of language. Adjectives, pronouns, predicates, past pluperfect indicative - ridiculous. It has qualities, shadings, differentiations, rhythmic structures of symbolic meaning. — Frederick Lenz
Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar. — Robert Breault
Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason. — Richard Chenevix Trench
I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman. — Robert Graves
Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness! — Roald Dahl
A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases. — E. B. White
english doesn't borrow from other languages. english follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar. — James Nicoll
Word lessons, in particular the wouldst couldst shouldst have loved kind, were kept up, with much warlike thrashing, until I had committed the whole of French, Latin, and English grammars to memory. — John Muir
I believe it is imperative to see modern English grammar as a rich and diverse linguistic system deposited on our [England's] shores 1,500 years ago, and left with us unweakened, though substantially changed by the social and political events of the intervening period. — Robert Burchfield
George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered grammar. — Oscar Wilde
Colonialism is a terrible bane for a people upon whom it is imposed, but a blessing for a language. English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, it shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar-the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved. — Yann Martel
In an idealized world, we would all be able to do what our English teachers told us to do, which is to write beautiful prose where enthusiasm is conveyed by word choice and grammar. — Will Schwalbe
People… they don’t write anymore – they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it’s just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King’s English. — David Duchovny
For most of us the rules of English grammar are at best a dimly remembered thing. But even for those who make the rules, grammatical correctitude sometimes proves easier to urge than to achieve. Among the errors cited in this book are a number committed by some of the leading authorities of this century. If men such as Fowler and Bernstein and Quirk and Howard cannot always get their English right, is it reasonable to expect the rest of us to? — Bill Bryson
Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple. — Robert A. Heinlein
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
In Conclusion
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