Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow line often separates affirmation from negation, sense from nonsense, and one sex from the other.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The fragility of language where tiny shifts in wording change meaning entirely.
- In plain terms
- Small changes in words can flip meaning from sense to nonsense.
- What can you take from it?
- Precision in language matters because small errors change meaning.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How much ambiguity can language tolerate?
- What makes language precise or fragile?
Another view
It overlooks how context and tone often rescue ambiguous phrases.
More from James Thurber
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.
Permalink to quote #78 Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
Permalink to quote #80 No male can beat a female in the long run because they have it over us in sheer, damn longevity.
Permalink to quote #77
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