Grammar Quote by Peter Farb
“Native speakers of a language know intuitively whether a sentence is grammatical or not. They usually cannot specify exactly what is wrong, and very possibly they make the same mistakes in their own speech, but they know-unconsciously, not as a set of rules they learned in school-when a sentence is incorrect.”
About This Quote
Source Book: The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, 1994
Native speakers sense grammaticality intuitively, lacking explicit rule knowledge, yet often repeat similar errors in their own speech.
In simple terms: People intuitively know correct grammar without formal rules.
Key Takeaway
Trust intuition but study rules for improvement.
Themes
language
intuition
grammar
learning
Mood
reflective
analytical
Type
educational
insightful
When to use this quote
- teaching language
- editing
- self‑editing
- language learning
Key Concepts
linguistics
cognitive psychology
Questions to Reflect On
- How can you improve grammatical accuracy beyond intuition?
- What patterns cause common errors?
A Different Perspective
Intuition can be misleading without explicit knowledge.
![“Leo Crowley, Harry [Truman]'s Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory...: 'If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves.' With that honeycunt staring you in the face, you'd forget your grammar too.” quote by Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/df0/anonymous-1_administrators_leo-crowley-harry-truman-s-foreign-econo_46095.jpg)