26 Grammar Quotes

It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there. And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there.

Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing.

Grammar, perfectly understood, enables us, not only to express our meaning fully and clearly, but so to express it as to enable us to defy the ingenuity of man to give to our words any other meaning than that which we ourselves intend them to express.

That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with 'in' and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say 'In July' and I'll go down on you. That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me by saying so. That's just stupid... 'In July'; I'd love to know how you emphasize 'In' in 'In July'. Impossible! Meaningless!

Grammar little by little is not a thing. Which may gain. There. Make twenty-five be a woman. The meaning of that does not interest me. It is a complexion that interests that makes ridiculous because that does not make it something else. But it does make them which is again me. Make twenty-five be a woman. I do not lose it. The color is there. Do you see. Dependent entirely upon how one word follows another. Who knows how Howard likes hearing. I can do it so easily it always makes grammar but is it grammar. Forget grammar and think about potatoes. Grammar after all has to do with why they were presented.

The question of 'unreality,' which confronts us at this point, is a very important one. Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines. They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in analysis than, in fact, it is. And they have not known what differences in grammatical form are important.

About James Clemens's Wit'ch Storm: 'Nothin'g sa'ys q'uality fantas'y l'ike misuse'd apos'tro'phes.'

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

You don't know what I'm up against. Because it's full of, of, of things that are only correct because they're grammatical, but they're tough on the ear, you see. This is a very wearying one. It's unpleasant to read. Unrewarding. 'Because Findus freeze the cod at sea, and then add a crumb-crisp' Ooh, 'crumb-crisp coating.' Ahh, that's tough, 'crumb-crisp coating.' I think, no, because of the way it's written, you need to break it up, because it's not, it's not as conversationally written.

On the poor use of grammar It's a matter of usage. If a house is off-plumb and rickety and lets in the wind, you blame the mason, not the bricks. Our words are up to the job. It's our syntax that's limiting.

Gloomy grammarians in golden gowns, Meekly you keep the mortal rendezvous, Eliciting the still sustaining pomps Of speech which are like music so profound They seem an exaltation without sound.

Nouns of number, or multitude, such as Mob, Parliament, Rabble, House of Commons, Regiment, Court of King's Bench, Den of Thieves, and the like.

I'm glad you like adverbs - I adore them; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made clear in no matter what idiom. Part I(1)

Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.

By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have.

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.

Hers, pron. His.