American Linguist Quotes

George Lakoff

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Ann Bannon

Kenneth Lee Pike

Daniel Everett

Charles F. Hockett

M. Carey Thomas

Science is fundamentally a moral enterprise, following the moral imperative to seek the truth.

Man does not live on bread alone; his other necessity is communication.

Charles F. Hockett

When writing a poem, I feel like I'm translating. And when I'm translating, I feel like I'm writing.

There is no right to punish. There is only the power to punish,' she wrote. 'A man is punished for his crime because the State is stronger than he; the great crime of War is not punished because beyond the individual there is mankind, and beyond mankind there is nothing at all.

If you behave like a doormat, expect to be stepped on and don't complain about it.

Suzette Haden Elgin

As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another's views more readily. But I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally.

If only there were a lexicographer of Liang Shih-ch'iu's ability who also had the perspicuity to arrange his dictionary by sound rather than radical! … No wonder most of us are so sour and gray by the time we reach fifty! The amount of time consumed and the spirit expended in this sort of meaningless, not to mention destructive, type of activity is beyond calculation.

Science and technology contribute to the fast-expanding vocabularies of all living civilized tongues at a faster rate than all other fields of human endeavor put together.

I have resisted the term sociolinguistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.

.. a woman can be a woman and a true one without having all her time engrossed by dress and society.

M. Carey Thomas

It's one thing to make lemonade out of lemons, another to proclaim that
lemons are what you'd hope for in the first place.

There are only two reasons for buying a book, after all. Either we intend to read it, in which case most of us find a printed version preferable, or we don't intend to read it, in which case a printed version is absolutely essential.

Geoffrey Nunberg

William Carlos Williams, late in his long life, had a dream: He saw an enormous spiral staircase in empty space, and his father slowly descending toward him. When he reached the bottom, his father walked over, looked him in the eye and said: You know those poems you're writing? They're no good.

Eliot Weinberger

The nomadic Semite... roves as a herdsman, partaking of Allah's hospitality.

Cyrus H. Gordon

Today's practicality is often no more than the accepted form of yesterday's theory.

Kenneth Lee Pike

That is a complete waste of your time and the government's money. You are a native speaker of English; in ten minutes you can produce more illustrations of any point in English grammar than you will find in many millions of words of random text.

Why are we so concerned about whether other animals are like human beings or not? Because we are worried about whether we should consider them kinfolk of ours, relatives. If they are relatives of ours, then we should treat them with more respect than if they are not.

The ultimate goal is a comprehensive classification of what is very likely a single language family. The implications of such a classification for the origin and history of our species would, of course, be very great.

Joseph Greenberg

The most difficult step in the study of language is the first step.

Leonard Bloomfield

A community is known by the language it keeps, and its words chronicle the times. Every aspect of the life of a people is reflected in the words they use to talk about themselves and the world around them. As their world changes — through invention, discovery, revolution, evolution, or personal transformation — so does their language.

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

Secrets could never be rushed. They had to come of their own accord, on their own schedule. That way, when they came, the offered themselves as a gift.

Donna Jo Napoli

History
Coming too close
Is monstrous, like a doll
That is alive and bigger than the child
Who tries to hold it.

Babette Deutsch

Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.

Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.