Ambrose Bierce Quotes

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.

If words are to change their meanings, as assuredly they are, let each user of language make such changes as please himself, put up his own suggestions, and let the best win.

Language changes and moves in a different direction evolving all the time. Where a lot of people see deterioration, I see expressive development

I believe that writers have a responsibility to evolve the language, whether by introducing new words or new usages. Shakespeare alone is responsible for something like 3400 words and phrases.

Language should be an ever developing procedure and not an isolated occurrence.

There is something like an explosion in the meaning of certain words: they have a greater value than their meaning in the dictionary.

I am very proud of being the one to have coined the word.

Language is ever on the move, and most days, I check out the 'Urban Dictionary' where anyone can invent a new and useful word or phrase.

Natural languages generally are not designed by humans, they're just designed by the participants and you say something new and somebody else says, "Oh, that's a cool way to say it," and the next thing you know, everyone is saying it because it's shiny.

I've coined new words, like, misunderstanding and "Hispanically".

'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'

Language evolves and moves on. It is an organic thing. It is not stuck in an ivory tower, hung with expensive works of art.

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.

I do think it's important that we experiment with new vocabularies. That new words help us conceptualize our social existence in a different way.

The New Oxford Dictionary has declared Sarah Palin's word 'refudiate' to be the 2010 Word of the Year. Palin was honored and said she would do her best to 'dismangle' the English language.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

A lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.

Language does not stand still. Surprisingly, despite this knowledge, most speakers are fearful of change.

LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.

The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay

By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom.

Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use.

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information.