Linguistic Purism Quotes

Whenever I write lyrics and an Americanism slips in, I always cut it straight out. I can't use the word 'babe,' for instance. It makes me cringe.

We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language.

Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.

I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.

Human, Allen, is an adjective, and its use as a noun is in itself regrettable.

Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual.

I'd rather split an infinitive than split an idea.