Words

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.

William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)


Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?

Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)


He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.

Abraham Lincoln


You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Inigo Montoya


“Is it true that you‘re well read?”
“Well I read a lot. It‘s not the same thing.”

John Scarry


Esoteric: intended only for understanding by a chosen few.


“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Lewis Carroll—Through the Looking Glass


Exhilaration: The feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and before you realize what’s wrong with it.


When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split.

Raymond Chandler


Now (like Pinker), I am a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist when it comes to language. Word usage is not “right” or “wrong,” it’s just “useful” or “unhelpful.”

Sean Carroll


My thought is that generally it is a good idea to keep subjects and verbs within shouting distance of each other.

James Kilpatrick


No one should ever have to read a sentence twice because of the way it is put together.

William Follett


The Elements of Style is one of the 100 worst nonfiction books ever sold to the public.

Geoffrey K. Pullum


This may be a good time to make a public service announcement. Do not insist that a word should mean today what it meant originally. What a word means today is what it really means. Pronunciation, meaning, or spelling can change, and often do, over time.

Anu Garg


Queue is such a great word. The actual important letter, and then four more silently waiting behind it in a line.


Labels are for the things men make, not for men. The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled.

Rex Stout