Linguistic Flexibility Quotes

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

When I'm working in America, I wake up with an American accent and stay with it all day till makeup comes off. I just want everyone to be at ease, and not have the show's creators think, 'Oh my god, he's so English, why did we hire him?'

I subconsciously mimic whomever I'm talking to, so I've been mistaken for a Canadian, a South American, and somebody from the West Country.

Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.

I've been working in three-four languages. I'm happy to do it.

Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

'Shoop' is whatever you want it to mean. You just shooping around. Just shoop!

My accent depends on whom I'm around.

I've always thought that speaking a foreign language from a young age makes you a little bolder when it comes to speaking and doing accents and things like that.

When you work in a different language you are not so attached to the words.

Writing is better if it's kept simple. Every sentence doesn't need to have perfect noun/verb agreement. I've said 'ain't' on the air. Because I sometimes use 'ain't' when I'm talking.

Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and context according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

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

The English language is so elastic that you can find another word to say the same thing.

I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages at my command, different styles, different ways of talking, which do involve different parameter settings.

I'm from New York. I have a non, neutral accent. It can go any way you want.

I’ve always been a word guy, I like weird words and I like American slang and all that and words that are no longer being used… I like to drag them out of the box and wave them around… this is an interesting one, it’s amazing how in addition to punctuation just a little pause in the wrong place can just completely transform the meaning of something.

If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word.

I don't think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial -- or is it post-colonial? -- cudgels against English. What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it -- assisted by the English language's enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.

I'm more of a mimic. My accent tends to drift to where ever I am.

Lexical variety, eccentric constructions and punctuation, variant spellings, archaisms, the ability to pile clause on clause, the effortless incorporation of words from other languages: flexibility, and inclusiveness, is what makes English great; and diversity is what keeps it healthy and growing, exuberantly regenerating itself with rich new forms and usages.

English is a very expressive language.

It would be good if teachers could genuinely understand that black English is not mistakes, it's just different English, and that what you want to do is add an additional dialect to black students' repertoire rather than teaching them out of what's thought of as a bad habit, like sloppy posture or chewing with your mouth open.

I write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.