01UndatedThough it's true that (dictionary-maker Samuel) Johnson sometimes seem to feel that the language was in decline, he didn't rail against it with (Jonathan) Swift's anger. Instead, he hoped the example of his dictionary would temper that change by providing a distinguished literary exampleRobert Lane Greene / quote ↗
02UndatedThousands of miles from Georgia, beginning that night in England, my dad became a foreign-language speaker to me – and I was utterly charmed by it. I found the foreigner in myself.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
03UndatedStandard languages are inventions, most of them confined to a recent period in human history. They are codes that give access not to clear thinking and basic decency but to the structured parts of our lives such as job interviews, political speeches, literary essays, novels, and the like. They signal education and learning, but they are not the same thing as education and learning.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
04UndatedArguments about language are usually arguments about politics, disguised and channeled through one of our most distinctive markers of identity.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
05UndatedThere is really only one way to learn good writing: good reading and extensive writing and revising.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
06UndatedAfrikaans was the language of the white minority in South Africa, and the forced learning of it created resentment among blacks. Even so, Nelson Mandela made it a point to learn this language in prison in anticipation that it would help him lead the whole of South Africa.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
08UndatedIf you look at the historical record, you will find that language has always been in decline. Which means, really, and it never has.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
09UndatedLanguage is changing constantly; printing and modern education have slowed it but have not stopped it. Given all this change, when, exactly, was language PERFECT, in the language pundit's mind? One has the feeling that the decline-mongers would feel rather sheepish has reading any answer. The 1950s? The Edwardian era? The real answer, however rarely expressed, seems to be "when Island it as a young person.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
10UndatedAmericans tend to use "nation" as a synonym for "country." But political scientists and historians, as well as many Europeans, tend to use the term for a much more specific phenomenon: a group of people who feel they belong together, whether they have a country of their own or not.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
11UndatedLanguage is not law; it is in fact a lot like music. Speech is jazz – first you learn the basic rules, and then you become good enough to improvise all the time. Writing is somewhat more like classical composition, where established forms and conditions will hold greater sway.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
12UndatedToo many people are too angry about language too much of the time. This time could be better spent listening, learning, and enjoying the vast variety of human language around them.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
13UndatedTo most of the general public, language comes down less to wonder than a rather censorious bifurcated sentiment – namely, that the vast majority of the world's humans either speak and something primitive or speak something badly.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
14UndatedI'd start to explain with the outward sheepish and inner pride of the nerd.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
15UndatedHis captivating speech came not from his grammar or vocabulary but from the joy he took in wielding them well.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
16UndatedLike so many of his successors in the language-crank world today, though, (Jonathan) Swift not only loathes (the) banal and common change (language); he ascribes it to moral failing.Robert Lane Greene / quote ↗
