A Quote by Ernest Hemingway
Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years for fear of getting stuff that will be simply timely and then go sour.
Related Quotes
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.
In general, American slang is much better than English slang. The entire world picks up American slang.
I found cause to wonder upon what ground the English accuse Americans of corrupting the language by introducing slang words. I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks' stay in London than in my whole "tenderloin" life in New York. But I suppose the English feel that the language is theirs, and that they may do with it as they please without at the same time allowing that privilege to others.
Slang is vigorous and apt. Probably most of our vital words were once slang.
There's an old little jingle: 'The chief use of slang is to show that you're one of the gang.' What that means is that every social group has its own linguistic bonding mechanism. If there's a group of lawyers, they have their own slang. If there's a group of doctors, they have their own slang, and so on.
I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.
I did a Sour Patch Kids commercial. First they're sour, then they're sweet. The Sour Patch Kid throws eggs at me, at my front door, and then comes over and gives me a hug at the end. I also did a Sony PlayStation commercial. They don't give you anything. I thought I was gonna get Sour Patch Kids; I thought I was gonna get a PlayStation.
I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.
I left Stone Sour in '97 because, by that time, we'd been together for about five years and I was kind of getting to the point where I wanted to do something different. I loved the music that we did and I loved the guys that I was with, but I was 24 and just felt like I needed to go and try something different so I didn't get stuck where I was, you know, just doing the same thing. And, coincidentally, that's when Slipknot came and asked me to join. I'd never done anything like Slipknot up until then, so I was like, "Okay, we'll try this and we'll see what happens." And it worked out.
We tried it again and it didn't work out. Sour milk is always sour milk. When something goes bad it stays bad.You don't put sour milk in the refrigerator one day,and take it out the next and expect it to taste sweet.
The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver," "taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.
The way I write is this: I write about a thousand words a day, a little bit more. The next morning, I read those thousand words and cursorily edit that. Then I write the next thousand. I do that all the way to the end of the book and then I reread the book quite a few times, editing as go through.
Bran was the only person I knew who could use words like "blackguard" and make them sound like swear words-but then he could have said "bunny rabbit" in that tone of voice and weaken my spine with the same shiver of fear.
I have a wonderful English-language dialogue coach. All the time I have to speak English, he is with me. It is a double effort, because you have to say the words correctly and then act them.
I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story.
Related Authors
Charles Bukowski Quotes
American
Novelist
Charles Dickens Quotes
English
Novelist
Chuck Palahniuk Quotes
American
Novelist
F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes
American
Novelist
George Eliot Quotes
British
Novelist
George Orwell Quotes
British
Novelist
George R. R. Martin Quotes
American
Novelist
Jane Austen Quotes
British
Novelist
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
German
Novelist
Margaret Atwood Quotes
Canadian
Novelist
Nicholas Sparks Quotes
American
Novelist
Paulo Coelho Quotes
Brazilian
Novelist
Sarah Dessen Quotes
American
Novelist
Stephenie Meyer Quotes
American
Novelist
Veronica Roth Quotes
American
Novelist
Victor Hugo Quotes
French
Novelist