Semantic Debate Quotes

And I’m not spying! I’m evaluating!” “It’s the same difference!

I mean, what is an un-birthday present?" A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course." Alice considered a little. "I like birthday presents best," she said at last. You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty. "How many days are there in a year?" Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice. And how many birthdays have you?" One.

I once spoke to a human geneticist who declared that the notion of intelligence was quite meaningless, so I tried calling him unintelligent. He was annoyed, and it did not appease him when I went on to ask how he came to attach such a clear meaning to the notion of lack of intelligence. We never spoke again.

I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious.

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

I am not too happy with terms like “the left”, to be honest. And I don’t use it much….if by “the left” you mean people who are committed to peace and justice and freedom and so on, there can’t be elements of the left opposed to workers’ movement, at least under that definition.

Don't hate the word, playa; hate the dictionary.

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Pilate was in advance of his time. For "truth" itself is an abstract noun, a camel, that is, of a logical construction, which cannot get past the eye even of a grammarian. We approach it cap and categories in hand: we ask ourselves whether Truth is a substance (the Truth, the Body of Knowledge), or a quality (something like the colour red, inhering in truths), or a relation ("correspondence"). But philosophers should take something more nearly their own size to strain at. What needs discussing rather is the use, or certain uses, of the word "true." In vino, possibly, "veritas," but in a sober symposium "verum."

As you can imagine, there were people who were like, "Why are you being the PC cop?" or, "This is Orwellian to tell people to stop using the word 'illegal' to refer to people." Well, I just want people to think it through.

Swear you'd rather die than use 'literally' as an intensifier.

Cofishes-other fish in a group, coworkers, cohorts, etc. Shut up, it's a word.