Lexical Precision Quotes

A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

The English language has been carefully culled to find words feeble in their nature or doubtful in their meaning.

I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe.

Choose each word as a precision tool. Consider how it sounds, not how it reads.

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.

Nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning.

The fact is that much misunderstanding is often caused by our modern attempts to limit too strictly the meaning of a Greek word.