Language Modification Quotes

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

When I was a freshman in college, I went to a broadcast class by mistake. The first day, the instructor said, "Television anchors sound like they could be from everywhere and nowhere." From that point on, every time I was near an anchor, when no one was around, they would say something and I would say it right after them. It was this effort to get rid of my accent.

Political correctness is a concept invented by hard-rightwing forces to defend their right to be racist, to treat women in a degrading way and to be truly vile about gay people. They invent this idea of people who are politically correct, with a rigid, monstrous attitude to life so they can attack. But we have all had to learn to modify our language. That's all part of being a decent human being.

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

Language does not stand still. Surprisingly, despite this knowledge, most speakers are fearful of change.

I'm gonna fix that last joke by taking out all the words and adding new ones.

Here I am paying big money to you writers and what for? All you do is change the words.

I don't swear much; I've taken those words out of my vocabulary, and having kids, you have to have two sets of language!

I work with accent coaches a lot and try to do my best to get the Australian out of there.

Speakers of English love to invent and reinvent the language.

I used to cuss in my tweets, and now I don't.

Ironically, I originally wrote the tweet with Jews and thought, That might give offense. And so I thought I better change it.

He wished someone in the course of history had thought of striking that word and all its derivatives from the English Language - happy, happier, happiest, happiness. What the devil did the words really mean anyway? Why not just the word pleasure, which was far more... well, pleasant.

They say that there is no reality before it has been given shape by words rules regulations. They say that in what concerns them everything has to be remade starting from basic principles. They say that in the first place the vocabulary of every language is to be examined, modified, turned upside down, that every word must be screened.