Vocabulary Expansion Quotes

The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.

I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.

Illiteracy causes violence. If you don't have enough words in your vocabulary, you can't even seek your way out of a situation.

The 'Reader's Digest' used to run a feature called 'It Pays to Increase Your Word Power.' The new wisdom - post-Trump and Brexit - is that it doesn't.

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life.

The New Oxford Dictionary has declared Sarah Palin's word 'refudiate' to be the 2010 Word of the Year. Palin was honored and said she would do her best to 'dismangle' the English language.

Learning to speak, therefore, and the power it brings of intelligent converse with others, is a most impressive further step along the path of independence ... Learning to walk is especially significant, not only because it is supremely complex, but because it is done in the first year of life.

Having a larger vocabulary the day you walk into kindergarten is advantageous.

Linguistic supersizing is on the increase, and it may show the influence of advertising-speak and corporate jargon on language, in which everything needs to be hyped to get noticed. It means that some of our greatest words are losing their power.

It's no big deal about how you get language to evolve. You cause language to evolve by saying new and intelligent things to each other.

I used to keep a dictionary and work with it and then I realized there are more words that exist in the English language than there are in this dictionary.

I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use - words that have specific, sharp, focused meaning. I also love the sound of certain words. I love the sound of the word pom-pom.

I knew at five years old what I wanted to do for a living. I started reading newspapers and books out loud at a very young age. I was very focused on English and building my vocabulary.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of 'like' has spread through the idiom of the young. And it's true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

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

Shakespeare's taught me that there are more words in the English language than I have got in my head.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

And then all of a sudden, you're doing jumping jacks, you're happy, because Kane can talk. The Big Red Retard can finally speak.

I have a small vocabulary, which I move around fast.

They think so small, they use small words. But not me, I'm smarter than that, I've worked it out. I'm stretching my mouth to let those big words come on out.

To go from "gnarly" to "literally," that shows I'm growing up, right?

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

I think we've probably all read a word that we've never heard pronounced out loud, and we try it out in a sentence and fall on our face.