A Quote by Joe Wurzelbacher

In my dictionary, and everyone's dictionary in the 1970s, the word 'queer' did mean strange and unusual. There was no slur to it.

Joe Wurzelbacher

Quote Topics

Dictionary Did Everyone Mean Queer Strange Unusual Word

Quote Author

Joe Wurzelbacher
American - Celebrity
Born: December 3, 1973

I bought a dictionary. First thing I did was, I looked up the word "dictionary", and it said "you're an asshole".

Demetri Martin

If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know? If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? Why is 'phonics' not spelled the way it sounds? How come abbreviated is such a long word?

George Carlin

My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.

Beverly Cleary

If you look in the dictionary under 'perfectionist,' you see Henry Selick correcting the definition of perfectionist in the dictionary. I mean, he is so meticulous.

John Hodgman

We think people go to a dictionary to find out what a word means. Most people go to the dictionary because they don't want to look stupid.

Erin McKean

Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

Ambrose Bierce

Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).

Ernest Hemingway

The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

Ambrose Bierce

In all my years in 'Countdown's' Dictionary Corner, the subject most guaranteed to rankle with our viewers is the presence of Americanisms in the dictionary.

Susie Dent

I used to keep a dictionary and work with it and then I realized there are more words that exist in the English language than there are in this dictionary.

Nas

I used to go through the dictionary looking for unusual but nontechnical words. At one time, I thought the greatest word was 'jejune' and I would throw it into every piece because something about it appealed to me.

Tom Wolfe

Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled.

Robert A. Heinlein

A panda walks into a tea room and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man in the next table dead, and walked out. Everyone rushed after it, shouting "Stop! Stop! Why did you do that?" "Becuase I am a panda," said the panda. "That's what pandas do. If you don't believe me, look in the dictionary." So they looked in the dictionary and sure enough they found Panda: Racoon-like animal of Asia. Eats shoots and leaves.

Ursula K. Le Guin

The dictionary has been in the making for several decades, and the result is well worth the wait. MacLean and those who worked with her have consulted with Iñupiaq speakers from across Alaska's North Slope to compile a comprehensive collection of word stems, along with postbases, grammatical endings, and an array of other valuable material. . . . This dictionary will prove fascinating for anyone interested in the Iñupiat and their language.

Lawrence Kaplan

A lot of people thought oh, we caught the dictionary in racism, or all it takes is a whole bunch of people saying that a word is bad for the dictionary to change it. That's not the case. For nude, things that are called nude color, that color palate has broadened very recently, in the last maybe seven to 10 years, and now covers all skin tones.