Sandi Toksvig Quotes

That's one of the ways language evolved, by some very obscure form becoming common usage. And I must say that I'm very intrigued by use of language and slang, and criminal underground terms.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

I'm really fascinated by lingos and colloquialisms that are outmoded and have gone by the wayside. I love the way people spoke in the '30s, and the amazing slang of the mid-'60s and '70s.

Language is always evolving. It's difficult to read Shakespeare now because language has shifted. Similarly, kids these days can get to the point really quick in about 140 characters or less because of these new tools.

Britain's fascination with its changing language is renowned.

My songs have some street talk in them, but that's the way I talk and the way a lot of people I know talk.

I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.

I write in American slang.

Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old: they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating.

Speakers of English love to invent and reinvent the language.

Every usage, no matter how bizarre or nonstandard, fascinates me, as it tells me something about the way language is evolving.

People love to drop in 'you betcha' as often as they can.

I hear it all the time in the street: 'It's the crisp bloke.'

I really like language - and slang in particular, and just the shorthand we use when we communicate with people.

I have this little thing that people call Keegan-ese, where I don't speak English words at all. I just say stuff like, "You gotta toish the doish and you gotta maloish the hoish."

I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.

What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.

Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.

The ways in which language changes never ceases to interest me.

In general, I agree with Jacob Grimm and feel that we ought to permit changes and uncontrolled growth in language. Even though that also allows potentially threatening new words to develop, language needs the chance to constantly renew itself.

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.'

Language changes very fast.

When I'm on television, I'm talking to millions of people, so the conversation is totally different. My words are different. My diction is different because now I'm really talking American English and not homeboy English.

Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.