Linguistic Precision Quotes

Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner.

Poets... are literal-minded men who will squeeze a word till it hurts.

Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked... One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

I've gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake.

Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth.

when General Eisenhower defined an intellectual as "a man who takes more words than is necessary to tell more than he knows", he was speaking not as a Republican but as an American.

One can neither agree nor disagree with a terminological proposal, as long as it is clear that it is just that: terminological.

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers.

Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too. Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally, language used wrongly, breeds lies, half-truths, confusion. In that sense you can say that grammar is morality. And it is in that sense that I say a writer's first duty is to use language well.

It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.

When you are a sentence-based writer, they have to be good. They have to be really on the spot. Because when you don't have a plot, really, what shall you rely on? Just language. And sometimes I am so afraid of writing the wrong thing, I just sit and wait for the right thing to come.

There is the first satisfaction of arranging it on a bit of paper; after many, many false tries, false moves, finally you have the sentence you recognize as the one you are looking for.

One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. There's often two words that are close in meaning, yet what I'm trying to say is in between them, or it might be a little more layered and nuanced. Having this conversation with you is exciting, because I can feel you resonate, even though we're on the phone. That's really beautiful to me.

One must be careful with words. Words turn probabilities into facts and by sheer force of definition translate tendencies into habits.

The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

The use of the right word, the exact word, is the difference between a pencil with a sharp point and a thick crayon.

Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word. It's really crafting this whole piece from nothing.

To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.

To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.