19th-century Lexicographer Quotes

William Dwight Whitney
James Augustus Henry Murray
E. Cobham Brewer

Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.

William Dwight Whitney
William Dwight Whitney
Blues. An American dance stemming from the Foxtrot, the speed of which it reduced and into which it brought a deliberately contrived dismal atmosphere. When Blues are sung their words seem to aim at attaining to the utmost depths of gloom and inanity.

To defer anything to the Greek Calends is to defer it sine die. There were no calends in the Greek months. The Romans used to pay rents, taxes, bills, etc., on the calends, and to defer paying them to the Greek Calends was virtually to repudiate them.

E. Cobham Brewer
E. Cobham Brewer
Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

The circle of the English language has a well-defined center but no discernible circumference.

James Augustus Henry Murray
James Augustus Henry Murray
Success and vocabulary go hand in hand. This has been proven so often that it no longer admits of argument.

The systems which confront the intelligence remain basically unchanged through the ages, although they assume different forms... there is nothing so disastrous in science as the arrogant dogmatism which despises the past and admires nothing but the present.