Formal Language Quotes

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

Mathematics is a language plus reasoning. It's like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning.

I'm one of those people who writes out words. All of my text messages? You can read them. Everyone would know what I'm trying to say. My sister will say 'BTW.' Do you mean 'by the way'? Is that what you're trying to say?

18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.

I've been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward-it's not what people are used to-it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down.

An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say 'Gentlemen' to the person with whom he is conversing.

Salutations; it's just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning

The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

Before, prior to. There is no difference between these two except length and a certain affectedness on the part of 'prior to.' To paraphrase Bernstein, if you would use 'posterior to' instead of 'after,' then by all means use 'prior to' instead of 'before.

If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

Over the years, I've trained myself to speak using the same language I would use if I were typing: meaning using full sentences in the way that paragraphs and scenes are arranged.

So-called "natural language" is wonderful for the purposes it was created for, such as to be rude in, to tell jokes in, to cheat or to make love in (and Theorists of Literary Criticism can even be content-free in it), but it is hopelessly inadequate when we have to deal unambiguously with situations of great intricacy, situations which unavoidably arise in such activities as legislation, arbitration, mathematics or programming.

Mathematics is pure language - the language of science. It is unique among languages in its ability to provide precise expression for every thought or concept that can be formulated in its terms.

I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators 'the haute couture of language.'

So a lot of what you see in the Baroque Cycle is me wanting to be one of those guys. In the case of Anathem, I needed something that was more formal, less flashy, as if it had been translated from the classical language of another planet, but enlivened with slang terms that a teenage narrator would enjoy throwing around.

I wrote the text of the resignation. I cannot say with precision when, but at the most two weeks before. I wrote it in Latin because something so important you do in Latin. Furthermore, Latin is a language in which I know well how to write in a more appropriate way.

I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

Sociological prose is generally written without images in an exact form for an academic audience.

Our everyday language has become encumbered, Germanic, artificial, bureaucratic, inorganic. It may not be exaggerated to say that by now American writers face but two alternatives: write English, or write gobbledygook.

I can give you the King's English and then I can take it to the street, but do both or do one and don't do one knowing only the street. That's going to hold you back because what comes out is going to impress people, and it will impress them negatively.

In most legislatures, punctilious attention to correct usage is considered elitist. The word 'government,' for example, is normally pronounced 'gummint'; bureaucracy is 'bureaucacy'; fiscal comes out 'physical,' and one moves not to suspend the rules, but to 'suppend.'

Can such stiff and formal moldings as words capture the spirit-essence of love?

Correct English is the slang of prigs.

The ones I like are ‘cheque’ and ‘enclosed.’

As I am sure you know, when people say 'It's my pleasure,' they usually mean something along the lines of, 'There's nothing on Earth I would rather do less.' [...]