The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.
– Joyce Carol Oates
Tag: language
Quotable 350
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
– Terry Pratchett
Quotable 263
Don’t overwrite. Avoid the redundant phrases, the distracting adjectives, the unnecessary adverbs. Beginners, especially, seem to think that writing fiction needs a special kind of flowery prose, completely unlike any sort of language one might encounter in day-to-day life. This is a misapprehension about how the effects of fiction are produced.
– Sarah Waters
Quotable 238
A cliché is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint.
– Janet Fitch
Quotable 145
My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.
– Ernest Hemingway
Quotable 56
We think in language. And so the quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.
– George Carlin
Pen to Paper: The Gender Question
When I write, I use “he” as a gender-neutral pronoun. It’s how I was taught, and I’ve known enough women who are smarter than I am who unapologetically use “he” that I haven’t been terribly self-conscious when I use it. Still, it is obvious that “he” is not gender neutral, and using it as the standard pronoun denies half of the human race.
The “s/he” or “his and/or her” attempts at gender neutrality are simply abominable. They announce, “I’m working so hard to be inclusive that I’ve destroyed the flow of my own sentence, and now you’re focused on my inclusiveness rather than my point.” Alternating between “he” and “she” has the same effect.