Erin McKean Quotes

22 quotes in 303 categories

• People say to me, ‘How do I know if a word is real?’ You know, anybody who’s read a children’s book knows that love makes…
• You can weaponize nice... Being nice can make you be a little underestimated.
• Experiences is just paying attention as time passes.
• And I don't like people who eat powdered doughnuts. I don't car how careful you are, they're just plain messy. I can't believe they taste…
• if you want someone to stop listening to you go ahead and yell. If you want them to listen to every word, whisper. -Mimi
• Singing when no one else is around is always good. I especially like belters. Good, loud singing is probably better medicine than half the stuff…
• You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe…
• Words take on many different meanings.
• There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary.
• All language is a popularity contest.
• Language is a nice way to remember things.
• All words have life cycles.
• If words are doing their job, then their novelty will not be the most noticeable thing about them.
• Almost any word can be drafted to serve as a verb, even words we think of as eternal and unchanging, stuck in their more traditional…
• Lexicographers are language reporters.
• Words are so lovable. How could you not love words?
• By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time.
• The use of food metaphors is really well established English... Somebody is a peach, a hot tamale.
• A love letter is to be savored; a love email... is to be forwarded to all your friends, and probably laughed at.
• Most of the words you know and love and use every day are not words you learned by looking them up in a dictionary and…

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