“Like so many of his successors in the language-crank world today, though, (Jonathan) Swift not only loathes (the) banal and common change (language); he ascribes it to moral failing.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share Image
“Peeves are like that: my peeves are law, yours are unhealthy obsessions.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Only 8000 different words appear in the Hebrew Bible, compared to the 20,000 or more that the average adult needs to know in most languages.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“If you look at the historical record, you will find that language has always been in decline. Which means, really, and it never has.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“to form such harsh unharmonious Sounds, that none but a Northern Ear could endure: They” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Arguments about language are usually arguments about politics, disguised and channeled through one of our most distinctive markers of identity.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Afrikaans was the language of the white minority in South Africa, and the forced learning of it created resentment among blacks. Even so, Nelson… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“I think flexibility, humility, and multilingualism should take the place of sticklerism, arrogance, and nationalism when we think about language. I” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Virtually anything can be translated—“X cannot be translated” usually means nothing more exciting than “We have a word, X, that you need three or… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“America’s short-lived experiment with language planning is so obscure to modern memory that while the Klingon language has a 3,000-word entry on Wikipedia, as… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“I'd start to explain with the outward sheepish and inner pride of the nerd.” — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Knowing the difference between “infer” and “imply” is no more likely to create a skeptical, bullshit-detecting citizen than knowing the atomic weight of uranium… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“It is possible to communicate beautifully or boringly, in every language on Earth. But people don't like to believe this. They make self-aggrandizing myths… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Language is not law; it is in fact a lot like music. Speech is jazz – first you learn the basic rules, and then… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Other “no-word-for” and “can’t-be-translated” myths include the stories that the Irish have no word for “sex” or even “yes” (how, one wonders, is there… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
“Bryson says we have no word for the Danish hygge, then goes on to tell us exactly what it means: “instantly satisfying and cozy”… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share
