Vocabulary Limitations Quotes

English may be the fastest moving language in the world, but there are plenty of concepts, sensations and everyday occurrences which lack a pithy word to describe them. Take the clunkiness of 'the day before yesterday' and 'the day after tomorrow': German provides single words for both.

Boxers don't tend to come from Cambridge or Oxford. Sometimes the things we say don't come out well. We are not known for our vocabulary.

Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints --the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk --we think we're using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we're its slavish agents.

I can get by quite well in Italian or German, though if the discussion got to a high level, I'd run out of vocabulary. I'm stronger in French and Swedish.

Language is such a powerful thing. After the earthquake, I went to Haiti and people were talking about how [they] described this feeling of going through an earthquake. People really didn't have the vocabulary - before we had hurricanes. I'd talk with people and they'd say, "We have to name it; it has to have a name."

Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.

Language is very deceiving. In certain languages, there is certain vocabulary that doesn't exist in other languages. It totally changes how people feel about things.

I'm very educated and can give you somewhat of a vocabulary, but I don't get to the philosophical side.

I don't know if experimental is a word I would ever use comfortably.