Idiomatic Language Quotes

Catchphrases flourish in contemporary American English.

Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants.

The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech - it is a gift from heart to heart.

Languages that try to disallow idiocy become themselves idiotic.

It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language.

My favourite language, actually, is Czech, just because it's so colourful. We have so many combinations, words, and expressions. I have to say there are a lot of things which you can say in Czech, but you cannot really translate, because the meaning would make no sense.

The last thing abandoned by a party is its phraseology.

To make the bloody thing talk the way I do when I'm on a verbal roll, in my idioms and rhythms.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.

Nothing in a language is less translatable than its modes of understatement.

Shakespearean words, foreign words, slang and dialect and made-up phrases from kids on the street corner: English has room for them all. And writers - not just literary writers, but popular writers as well - breathe air into English and keep it lively by making it their own, not by adhering to some style manual that gets handed out to college Freshmen in a composition class.

Colloquialism is the toughest part of what we do, as foreign actors, because there are certain sayings that you guys have that absolutely don't make any sense.

Cor, love a duck. And also Lawks-a-mercy. I said that inwardly, but outwardly I said, "Blimey, and also, what larks.

Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual.

The use of food metaphors is really well established English... Somebody is a peach, a hot tamale.

I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

The biggest challenge I have is to learn when somebody doesn't really mean what they're saying 'cause I don't say something I don't mean. I live in Literalville.

She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else