Quotes about Language

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen.

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car.

A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere - no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift to articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton...

The reason why the continental European is, to the Englishman or American, so surprisingly ignorant of the Bible, is that the authorized English version is a great work of literary art, and the continental versions are comparatively artless.

I need not repeat familiar arguments about the waste of teachers' time, and the difficulties thrown in the way of English children trying to learn their own language; or the fact that nobody without a visual memory for words ever succeeds in spelling conventionally, however highly educated he or she may be.

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

The simple biggest problem in communication is the illusion that has taken place.

What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor!

All choice of words is slang. It marks a class." "There is correct English: that is not slang." "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.