A Quote by Steven Pinker

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

Steven Pinker

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Basis Been Centuries Every Great Great Writers Language Logic Manual Oral Oral Tradition Pedants Style Thoughtful Tradition Usage Very Thoughtful Writers

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Steven Pinker
Canadian - Scientist
Born: September 18, 1954

Rap comes from the oral tradition. The oral tradition gives voice to those who would've otherwise been voiceless.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Many and subtle are the ideological weapons that the State has wielded through the centuries. Once excellent weapon has been tradition. The longer that the rule of a State has been able to preserve itself, the more powerful this weapon; for then, the X Dynasty or the Y State has the seeming weight of centuries of tradition behind it.

Murray Rothbard

I feel like it's not so much a tradition as a system that has been codified over the centuries starting in the Renaissance that applies to any painted surface. So if you're engaging in paintings, this is the language that one has to learn and is obliged to speak. I was very fortunate that I learned this language when I was a kid before I went to California, where I learned the language of attitude. Somehow the two things began to coexist.

David Salle

In Paris style is everything. That is traditionally understood. Every street, every structure, every shopgirl has style. The style of Parisian architecture has been proved and refined by at least three centuries of academic dictates and highly developed taste. There are few violations of this taste, and there is exemplary architectural consistency. Paris has defined the aesthetics of a sophisticated urban culture.

Ada Louise Huxtable

Both Italy and Britain have a great tailoring tradition. British men are famously elegant and careful with their style: they love to have their clothes tailored, and they often have a trusted tailor who is passed on from father to son. Plus you have this great textile and fabric tradition, which has been a source of inspiration to us.

Domenico Dolce

There's been resistance to every new technology that's ever been introduced. When books came out hundreds of years ago, there were complaints that it would destroy the oral tradition. Some of those fears were justified, but it didn't stop the rise of the written word. And books have proven to be incredibly useful.

Jeremy Stoppelman

I have been given something really, really special and really unique, and it is not just in and of itself having learned from my father, who is the greatest exponent of this musical style. But it is an oral tradition that is only generally passed on in that manner, and so without the people who continue to... learn it and perform it, it dies.

Anoushka Shankar

I'm really fascinated and you know I've been wondering about that usage of language, various breathing techniques and why in these practices language is being used in another way.

Kathy Acker

I am not against songs in films. We come from an oral tradition of storytelling. I have grown up listening to epics in oral rendition and oral rendition always had music.

Mani Ratnam

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

George Orwell

Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But that, in my opinion, was justified by the sheer number of excellent writers coming from India and the Indian diaspora.

Mohsin Hamid

I think there's a great storytelling tradition in the restaurant business that tends to attract people with an oral tradition of bulls - ting and bollocking. Creative people, people for whom the 9-to-5 world is not attractive or impossible. It seems that way. There are a lot of stories in the business, and a lot of characters - and it seems to attract its share of artists and writers and people who hope to do something creative in their lives.

Anthony Bourdain

Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.

Celeste Ng

There is a sort of knowledge beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had in conversation; so necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Henry Fielding

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.

Robert Green Ingersoll

I view Witchcraft as a religion that has evolved over the centuries. I do not consider Witchcraft to be a modern invention. Instead I deal with it in my writings as a Mystery Tradition with long roots to the past. It has always been my position that we don't need an ancient tradition in order to be validated. We just happen to have one.

Raven Grimassi

A Quote by Steven Pinker

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