Quotes by Women Linguists

Sigrid Undset

Snježana Kordić

Edith Pargeter

Charlotte Mary Yonge

Sara Coleridge

Ann Bannon

M. Carey Thomas

Refinement is just as much a Christian grace in a man as in a woman; but he is not such a hateful, unsexed creature without it as a woman is.

Charlotte Mary Yonge

A little philosophy carries a man from God, but a great deal brings him back again.

The job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.

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

M. Carey Thomas

As for changes in the world, the most valuable surely is that we need no longer be an island entire unto ourselves. No young gay person is thrown in jail anymore for just the suspicion of homosexual activity.

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

Suzette Haden Elgin

Let's face it. Very few people want to talk to someone who is showing outward signs of fear or depression.

Jeanne Martinet

Who wants to be a linguist must apply consistently linguistic criteria, not tinkering to comply with policy needs, creating the illusion that one stands still in the field of science.

Snježana Kordić

Word meanings are like stretchy pullovers, whose outline contour is visible, but whose detailed shape varies with use.

Swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.

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.

It's a good thing when you don't dare do something if you don't think it's right. But it's not good when you think something's not right because you don't dare do it.

People with an interest in the workings of any society must also concern themselves with its language — how it is structured and used, what its users believe about it and so on.

Deborah Cameron (linguist)

Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

Here I begin to know that blessedness is what can be snatched out the passing day and put away to think of afterwards.