Ocean Quote by Kory Stamper

““ALL words are made-up: Do you think we find them fully formed on the ocean floor, or mine from them in some remote part of Wales?””

Kory Stamper

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.0 out of 5 (7 ratings)

Ocean Words

More by Kory Stamper

“Under ordinary circumstances, we learn to speak before we learn to read, and anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language knows that the gold standard of fluency isn’t your reading comprehension but your ability to ask a native speaker of that language which team they favor in the World Cup and to fully understand and participate in the…

Kory Stamper

“Then Eric talked for half an hour about the Albanian word for”

Kory Stamper

Image

“Like many things that are claimed as Western inventions, grammar was first practiced in the East. According to scholars, there is a rich tradition of grammatical typology in Sanskrit that dates back to at least the sixth century B.C. and probably the eighth century B.C. *3 I had that teacher, and that comment still chaps my hide. *4 Modern linguistic…

Kory Stamper

Whenever you try and simplify how people speak, it's just hard to squish them into a simple rule. Language doesn't work that way.

Kory Stamper

Image

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy…

Kory Stamper

“It is best, in fact, to assume that every verbal illustration you write will offend someone, somewhere, at some point.”

Kory Stamper

Image

“It wasn’t story (good or bad) that pulled me in; it was English itself, the way it felt in my braces-caged mouth and rattled…

Kory Stamper

Image

“Removing racial slurs from the dictionary will not eliminate racism; removing “injustice” from the dictionary will not bring about justice. If it were really…

Kory Stamper

Image

What makes autocorrect really interesting for a lexicographer is we read in a very weird way. A lot of times we'll catch things that are so clearly autocorrect typos, and you learn to tell the difference between an honest-to-goodness, ham-fisted typo and an autocorrect typo because the latter will not necessarily be a difference of one letter apart on the…

Kory Stamper

I make the case in the book that Standard English, that language we all aspire to live and move and have our being within,…

Kory Stamper

Image

“bor·bo·ryg·mus \ˌbȯr-bə-ˈrig-məs\ n, pl bor·bo·ryg·mi \-ˌmī\ : intestinal rumbling caused by moving gas (MWC11)”

Kory Stamper

Image

“Person, Place, Thing (Noun); Describes Action (Verb); Modifies Nouns (Adjective); Answers the W Questions (Adverb); Joins Words Together (Conjunction); Things We Say When We…

Kory Stamper

Image

Explore all 60 Kory Stamper quotes

More Ocean quotes

I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the…

Paulo Coelho

Image

Clear moments are so short. There is much more darkness. More ocean than terra firma. More shadow than form.

Adam Zagajewski

Image

With the realization of God comes all power. If the little wave knew that behind it is the great ocean, it could say, "I…

Paramahansa Yogananda

Image

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view…

Timothy Leary

When we went into the ocean, I watched his body as he dove into the waves, and it gave me a feeling in my…

Nicole Krauss

Image

Our world is drowning in a sea of self-centeredness. You can make yourself quite unique right away by leaving this ocean of selfishness and…

John Bytheway

Image

The improved American highway system isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson's nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was…

Daniel J. Boorstin

“It’s a big ocean crossed by busy ships. I went slowly, observing much.”

Yann Martel

Image

Your head's like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The…

Grant Morrison