Susie Dent Quotes

People are under the impression that dictionaries legislate language. What a dictionary does is keep track of usages over time.

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.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

The notion that anything is gained by fixing a language in a groove is cherished only by pedants.

It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time.

The American language should be descriptive rather than proscriptive.

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

Unlike our neighbours on the mainland of Europe, we have resisted creating an academy to legislate over proper English. We each have our linguistic bugbear, but few of us would want to freeze our mother tongue.

The other day, I was taking part in an audience Q&A when I was roundly scolded by a woman for 'allowing the BBC to ruin the English language.' Naturally I felt terrible, as I had no idea either that it was happening or that I was responsible.

Part of what makes a language 'alive' is its constant evolution. I would hate to think Britain would ever emulate France, where they actually have a learned faculty whose job it is to attempt to prevent the incursion of foreign words into the language. I love editing Harry with Arthur Levine, my American editor-the differences between 'British English' (of which there must be at least 200 versions) and 'American English' (ditto!) are a source of constant interest and amusement to me.

A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.

I am a part of the old school where I feel that purity of the language should be retained. But English is a constantly evolving language where new words are being added to the dictionary, so I don't see any harm in experimenting with the language. Only poor editing standards need to be improved.

I love English, though I now call it 'Anglo- American' because we no longer speak British English due to globalization and America's economic power.

Language changes very fast.

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

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.

As a matter of fact, a national language which spreads beyond its own confines very quickly loses much of its original richness of content and is in no better case than a constructed language.

Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.

We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound.

When we look at the specific effect of the Internet on language, languages asking the question, 'Has English become a different language as a result of the Internet?' the answer has to be no.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries eventually reflect popular choices. And the Internet is allowing more people to influence spelling than ever before.

The one thing about internet language, people join it, and what quickly evolves is an 'internet dialect,' as it were.

Language itself changes slowly, but the Internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly.

New words can spread like wildfire thanks to social media - you only have to look at 'mansplaining' and 'milkshake duck' to see language evolution at work - so why not old ones too?

Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides.