A Quote by Jean Aitchison

Purists behave as if there was a vintage year when language achieved a measure of excellence which we should all strive to maintain. In fact, there was never such a year. The language of Chaucer's or Shakespeare's time was no better and no worse than that of our own - just different.

Jean Aitchison

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Achieved Behave Better Chaucer Different Excellence Fact In Fact Just Language Maintain Measure Never Our Own Shakespeare Should Strive Than Time Vintage Which Worse Year

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Jean Aitchison
Born: 1938

As a matter of fact, a national language which spreads beyond its own confines very quickly loses much of its original richness of content and is in no better case than a constructed language.

Edward Sapir

Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.

Franklin P. Adams

Everyone knows ladies love Cajuns. It's in our blood and our language is the language of romance." "Your language is the language of bullshit. You're just a couple of good ole boys with pretty faces. Women just ought to know better.

Christine Feehan

There is certainly no one 'type' of writer who deliberately draws on Shakespeare. In fact, there's a strong argument that everyone writing in the English language is influenced by Shakespeare because, to a considerable degree, he shaped that language.

Matt Haig

We switch to another language-- not our invented language or the language we've learned from our lives. As we walk further up the mountain, we speak the language of silence. This language gives us time to think and move. We can be here and elsewhere at the same time.

David Levithan

When I went into the computer shop to change my last laptop, the 19-year-old kid behind the counter looked at my six-year-old model and described it as 'vintage.' 'Vintage?' I wanted to scream. 'Son, I've got shirts older than you! I own underpants that have seen more of the world!'

John Niven

English is the language of a people ho have probably earned their reputation for perfidy and hypocrisy because their language itself is so flexible, so often light-headed with with statements which appear to mean one thing one year and quite a different thing the next.

Paul Scott

We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language.

Barack Obama

You travel the world, you go see different things. I like to see Shakespeare plays, so I'll go - I mean, even if it's in a different language. I don't care, I just like Shakespeare, you know. I've seen Othello and Hamlet and Merchant of Venice over the years, and some versions are better than others. Way better. It's like hearing a bad version of a song. But then somewhere else, somebody has a great version.

Bob Dylan

I think it's about the feeling more than a language. And I think that we and every culture in the world has to keep their own language just to bring something else, something different, and show a different vision of the world, actually. And that's why I'm trying to keep my language.

Stromae

Every language teaches you something, so learning a language is never wasted, especially if it's different in more than just syntactic trivia.

Brian Kernighan

I was that weird eight-year-old who was really interested in Shakespeare and understood it and appreciated the language.

Zendaya

You should do whatever language you feel is the perfect language for you to sing in and then try to strive to do the best.

Enrique Iglesias

The fact that all our ape cousins - chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans - can acquire signs - is powerful evidence that our hominid ancestors' first language was gestural and that the vocal version of language was a relatively recent development. My own guess is that vocal language began emerging about 200,000 years ago.

Roger Fouts

This is a devastating problem, is, the longer our children are in school, the worse they do. Year after year after year, our children in America are falling further behind. Our 3- and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten OK, and they fall further and further behind. Each year, children in other countries are learning more than children in this country. And so the gap between American student performance in Singapore and Finland and South Korea and Canada and these other countries, the gap widens year after year after year.

Arne Duncan

I find Shakespeare surprisingly sexual. A lot of his language - a lot - has that kind of sexual innuendo that is at once everywhere but also kinda lost because we have our own innuendo now, our own language.

Renee Elise Goldsberry

A Quote by Jean Aitchison

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