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Grammar Quote by Peter Farb

“Native speakers of a language know intuitively whether a sentence…” quote by Peter Farb — Download Open image

“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.”

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Grammar Knows Language Mistake Native Same mistakes School Sentences Speakers Speech

More by Peter Farb

Despite the theories traditionally taught in high-school social studies, the truth is: the more primitive the society, the more leisured its way of life.

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Men in all societies possess the biological equipment to remove their hats or shoes, but it is the birth within a particular culture that…

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A complex society is not necessarily more advanced than a simple one; it has just adapted to conditions in a more complicated way.

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Speakers who have grown up in the American community unconsciously know its rules about taking turns in conversations-in the same way that they know…

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An invention or new combination can be successful only if all if the elements necessary for the recombination are present in the culture.

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Gestures and facial expressions do indeed communicate, as anyone can prove by turning off the sound on a television set and asking watchers to…

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Letters to the editors of English and American newspapers often contain expressions of horror about the new terms that creep into the language, and…

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No child is capable of speech until he has heard other human beings speak, and even two infants reared together cannot develop a language…

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Marriage is simply an economic necessity, and so there are no elaborate courtship displays or marriage celebrations among the Eskimo.

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Language does not stand still. Surprisingly, despite this knowledge, most speakers are fearful of change.

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The dictionary is a closed system in which someone interested in the meaning of a word can go around and around and end up…

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At every moment of his life the Shoshone must be careful to observe the complicated folkways of his group, to do reverence to superhuman…

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More Grammar quotes

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Spell check bails me out on the constant.

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Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

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People from my sort of background needed grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.

Margaret Thatcher

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I wish those red, squiggly spellcheck lines would show up when some people talk.

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