M.I.T. has a reputation for turning out Dilberts. They may be brilliant in what they do, but no one can understand what they say.
The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.
I'm interested in when language fails, when it is opaque.
Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!
I don't know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.
The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
You should never, ever be understood completely. That's like the kiss of death, isn't it? It's a full stop. I don't ever think you should put full stops on thoughts. They change.
Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.
Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .
Every sentence he manages to utter scatters its component parts like pond water from a verb chasing its own tail.
All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence.
The expression of a man's face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.
I think in terms of emotions. And feelings. So sometimes what I say may not always be clear. But creatively, there's a lot to be said for that way of thinking.
I entirely agree with you about the obscurity of Mrs Browning's line about the stars. It is far-fetched. She wanted to express something which she found beyond expression.
