American Language Quotes

• We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Humor, Two Nations

  The Canterville Ghost pt. 1 (1887) See George Bernard Shaw 58

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• May the Force be with you.

  George Lucas

  Movie, Film History, Psychics

  Star Wars (motion picture) (1977)

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• We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

  Booker T. Washington

  Communication, Vocabulary, Pockets

  86 Copy quote

• You can't handle the truth!

  Jack Nicholson

  Movie, Memorable, Great Year

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• I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

  Mario Puzo

  Movie, Hollywood Films, Film History

  The Godfather ch. 1 (1969)

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• Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages

  Dave Barry

  Travel, Inspirational Life, Learning

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.259, Ballantine Books

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• I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.

  Marlon Brando

  Movie, Film History, Hollywood Films

  "Fictional character: Don Vito Corleone". "The Godfather", www.imdb.com. March 14, 1972.

  86 Copy quote

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• Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me... aren't you?

  Dustin Hoffman

  Movie, Hollywood Films, Great Year

  65 Copy quote

• Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

  Michael Douglas

  Movie, Great Year, Greed

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• The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.

  James F. Cooper

  Ambition, Simplicity, Abuse

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

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• American art, like the American language and American education, was as far as possible sexless.

  Henry Adams

  Art, Language, American Education

  1907 The Education of Henry Adams, ch.25,'The Dynamo and the Virgin'.

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• The official language of the State of Illinois shall be known hereafter as the American language, and not the English language.

  Frank Church

  Illinois, Government, Language

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• The American language differs from the English in that it seeks the top of expression while English seeks its lowly valleys.

  Salvador de Madariaga

  Expression, Valleys, Language

  4 Copy quote

• Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised - so it's no longer "in the closet," as it were. It's part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature. The same questions are there in Native American languages, they're there in native Canadian languages, they're there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish. So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.

  Ngugi wa Thiong'o

  Writing, Native American, School

  Source: www.alternet.org

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• My local paper, The New York Times, Yahoo News, CBS, and The Washington Post, all agreed to stop using the word 'mistress.' The big one was the Associated Press. They made a style change, and it's the gold standard that sets the guide for news outlets around the world. That's a small step for the American language, a medium step for feminism, and a huge step for me personally.

  Paula Broadwell

  New York, Style, Mistress

  Source: www.vanityfair.com

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• I got my dog back, in African-American language, your dog means your passion, your fire.

  Deion Sanders

  Dog, Passion, Mean

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• H. L Mencken's Dictionary of the American Language supplies a long list of slang terms for being drunk, but the Irish are no slouches, either. They're spannered, rat-arsed, cabbaged, and hammered; ruined, legless, scorched, and blottoed; or simply trolleyed or sloshed. In Kerry, you're said to be flamin'; in Waterford, you're in the horrors; and in Cavan, you've gone baloobas, a tough one to wrap your tongue around if you ARE baloobas. In Donegal, you're steamin', while the afflicted in Limerick are out of their tree.

  Bill Barich

  Long, Drunk, Tree

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• The American language is in a state of flux based upon survival of the unfittest.

  Cyril Connolly

  Communication, Survival, Society

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• And I have a dream of a New American Language, one with a little bit more Spanish. I have a dream of a new pop music, that tells the truth with a good beat and some nice harmonies.

  Dan Bern

  Dream, Nice, Littles

  Song: New American Language, Album: New American Language, 2001

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• If you loose the sounds comming out of New Orleans, you loose apart of the american language.

  Ty Pennington

  New Orleans, Sound, Language

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