Language Misuse Quotes

The exact meaning of irony is so narrow that the word is hardly worth using; in its broad, current definition, it's a euphemism for sarcasm. 'I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being ironic.' No, you're not. You're evading the responsibility for being sarcastic.

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

I spoke French a bit, and I could speak a bit of this and that, and when you were taught those things by people who couldn't really do it, you can do some pretty wonderfully, imaginative horrific things to teachers.

Never use jargon words like 'reconceptualize', 'demassification', 'attitudinally', 'judgmentally'. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names…. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

I've heard of many chocoholics, but I ain't never seen no "chocohol". We got an epidemic, people: people who like chocolate but don't understand word endings. They're probably "over-workaholled".

No language exists that cannot be misused... Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.

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.

Try not to be either intimidated by or a captive of jargon. Even though it's language, and language is about communication, it often exists actually to obfuscate and to control power and not to communicate.

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.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.

In the dying world I come from, quotation is a national vice.

I get the Reese's candy bar. You look at that, there's an apostrophe-s there. That means the candy bar is his. I didn't know that. Next time you're eating a Reese's candy bar, and a guy named Reese comes by and says, "Gimme that", you better hand it over.

It is sort of interesting that in our society this days we are very quick to apply the term 'war' to places where thare are no actual wars, and loath to apply the term 'war' when we are actually fighting wars.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

Affection is one of the most neglected words in the English language, that people throw the word love around like confetti when they mean affection.

We gave you a perfectly good language and you f***ed up.

It is a great shame; most of our words are misused tools / which often still smell of the mud in which previous owners / desecrated them.

Don't gobblefunk around with words.

The abuse of terms has at all times been an evil.

The English language is an arsenal of weapons. If you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or not they are loaded, you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time.

Our language has become a tired and inefficient thing in the hands of journalists and writers who have nothing to say.

When language is used without true significance, it loses its purpose as a means of communication and becomes an end in itself.