Robert Burchfield Quotes

10 quotes in 219 categories

• The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.
• Computer users soon learn that the miraculous powers of personal computers are based on avoidance of error.
• Lexicography is a chastening as well as an illuminating and fascinating art.
• 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,…
• I am sure that the two main forms of English, American English and British English, separated geographically from the beginning and severed politically since 1776,…
• In 1776, at the point of severance, except for an infusion of words from east coast Indian languages, the English language of North America was…
• The language of Doctor Johnson and Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, and that of their adult contemporaries, was the stately language of the time, polished, stylish,…
• At all periods of the [English] language it is difficult to assign a beginning date to most new words and meanings. They tend to slip…
• Vulgarity finds its antidote; old crudities become softened with time. Distinctions, both those that are useful and those that are burdensome, flourish and die, reflourish…
• To finish is both a relief and a release from an extraordinarily pleasant prison.

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