Words are the clothes thoughts wear.
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Samuel Beckett
When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world.
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George Steiner
Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein
Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.
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Unknown
More Quotes By John McWhorter
Our sense of what American English is has upended our relationship to articulateness, our approach to writing, and how (and whether) we impart it to the young, our interest in poetry, and our conception of what it is, and even our response to music and...
People's sense of how they talk tends to differ from the reality.
Polish has developed unimpeded; someone put their foot out and tripped English. The human grammar is a fecund weed, like grass. Languages like English, Persian, and Mandarin Chinese are mowed lawns, indicative of an interruption in natural proliferation.
[I] would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less "African" than actual Africans that calling ourselves 'African American' is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak African languages, eat African food, dance in...
The difference between educated people and uneducated people is that educated people have been opened up to the notion that you can disagree without fighting; whereas uneducated people, in conversation, seek to always agree--everybody agrees and agrees and that's considered basic social libation.
