Susie Dent Quotes

I'm a massive fan of the dictionary.

I love American English, not least because a lot of it was ours to begin with. Indeed, many Americanisms can be found in the works of William Shakespeare.

I've been obsessed with words since I was a little girl, and I am fortunate that each week as resident word expert on 'Countdown' I am ideally placed to quiz my guests in dictionary corner about the words and phrases they use.

I can hardly believe that I even know this, but I am aware that Noah Webster's original dictionary, apart from being the first truly American lexicography, was a kind of line in the sand. It claimed a very discrete, American form of the English language, explicitly to compare it to the English of our erstwhile colonial masters who had been operating under Dr. Johnson's dictionary rules for well over a century.

A lot of people use the dictionary to find out how to spell words.

An important work of architecture will create polemics.

If you travel to the States... they have a lot of different words than like what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator', we say 'lift'; they say 'drapes', we say 'curtains'; they say 'president', we say 'seriously deranged git.'

I never really expected to be controversial.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

Some people were offended by a show about cougars.

There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary.

When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.

Every time you write anything, at least half your readers are going to disagree with you. A big part of sports writing is how you respond to that tension.

I just love dialects; they're really fun.

I think, in general, it's better not to respond to reviews of your work.

The British have slang words, as we do, but it was fun.

I can open up any can of worms and get people upset.

People who passionately want to believe that the world is basically simple react to this with a fury that goes beyond what I consider appropriate for discussing a programming language.

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.

There's so much to argue about. That was the goal with 'Really Really.' Somebody asked me once, 'How should I feel when I leave?' and I said, 'Hopefully, you're talkative.' I don't really care if you're happy or sad or loved it or hated it or hate me. The goal is that you have something to say, that you have a response.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

Speakers of English love to invent and reinvent the language.

I had a feeling there would be mixed reactions.

What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.