Language Debate Quotes

If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.

Despite overwhelming support for the United States to adopt English as its official language, we have still not taken that important step.

When California passes a law saying that English is the official language, it can only mean one thing: That English is no longer the official language.

Is calling English our national language racist? Are we at that point?

I've been surprised at the number of people who were really angry that I tried to convey gender neutrality by using a gendered pronoun.

Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken. Oh, the Oxford comma. Here, in case you don't know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: "The flag is red, white, and blue." So what do you think of it? Are you for or against it? Do you hover in between?

The Republican Party's typical position is to preemptively surrender whenever liberals start yelling 'Oh that's mean. You can't use that word': 'Oh I did not realize that 'The New York Times' made a finding that the term 'anchor baby' is offensive. Henceforth I shall not use it.'

I hate all that nonsense about not touching the colonialists' language. All that about it being corrupting and belonging to the master and making you Caliban. That thinking just denies you an outlet. You deny everything that is great from a language, whether it is Conrad or Shakespeare.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

The only privilege literature deserves - and this privilege it requires in order to exist - is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.

me: why is it upset? shouldn't it be downset? gideon: i will file a lawsuit against the dictionaries first thing tomorrow morning. we're going to tear merriam a new asshole and throw webster inside of it.

There is no linguistic war in Montreal.