Dictionary Quotes - Page 13

• Language is a signifier - it points to something. But those somethings change sometimes. Where the line comes down is that change is not in the dictionary first, it's not: change the signifier and the signified will go away.

  Kory Stamper

  Going Away, Things Change, Language

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• A lot of people thought oh, we caught the dictionary in racism, or all it takes is a whole bunch of people saying that a word is bad for the dictionary to change it. That's not the case. For nude, things that are called nude color, that color palate has broadened very recently, in the last maybe seven to 10 years, and now covers all skin tones.

  Kory Stamper

  Racism, People, Skins

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions.

  Dave Winer

  Different, Definitions, Eleven

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• The dictionary also invites a playful reading. It challenges anyone to sit down with it in an idle moment. There are worse ways to kill time.

  Mortimer Adler

  Reading, Challenges, Way

  Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren (2014). “How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading”, p.175, Simon and Schuster

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• I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it.

  John Boyne

  Children, Book, Writing

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• I didn't even know what the word lesbian meant until I was called one... and then I had to look it up in the dictionary.

  Kathleen Hanna

  Looks, Knows

  Interview with Nina Corcoran, allstonpudding.com.

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• I don't think that ambition should not be in the dictionary of entrepreneurs. But our ambition should be realistic. You have to realise that you can't do everything.

  Mukesh Ambani

  Ambition, Thinking, Entrepreneur

  "I think we changed the whole business ethos in India: Mukesh Ambani". Interview with Sudeep Chakravarti and Daksesh Parikh, indiatoday.intoday.in. June 30, 1993.

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• The word gratitude is not part of the Hollywood dictionary.

  Harry Cohn

  Gratitude, Hollywood

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

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• "Then idiots talk," said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, "of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy."

  Charles Dickens

  Character, Eye, Interesting

  Charles Dickens, George Cruikshank (1868). “The Works of Charles Dickens: Our mutual friend”, p.17

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• The word 'defeat' is not to be found in my dictionary, and everyone who is selected as a recruit in my army may be certain that there is no defeat for a satyagrahi.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Army, May, Defeat

  Mahatma Gandhi (1993). “Gandhi on Nehru”

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• You need to release yourself of any expectation of what that material should be. Just start letting it be what it's naturally evolving into, even if it means just pulling words out of the dictionary and laying them one after another. Words are everywhere.

  Antony Hegarty

  Mean, Expectations, Needs

  Source: thequietus.com

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• I just wish they'd put a new word in the dictionary bigger than love because love just doesn't describe what I feel.

  John Mayer

  Love Is, Wish, Bigger

  "John Mayer: Any Given Thursday". Video, www.imdb.com. 2003.

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• There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment; but there is no such thing in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments are to believers intimations of the will of God.

  John Newton

  Disappointment, World, Gods Will

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 281), 1895.

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• When I start asking my friends, "What do you think this means?" And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like "apocryphal," for instance.

  Andrew Bird

  Mean, Thinking, Interesting Conversation

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• The dictionary has been in the making for several decades, and the result is well worth the wait. MacLean and those who worked with her have consulted with Iñupiaq speakers from across Alaska's North Slope to compile a comprehensive collection of word stems, along with postbases, grammatical endings, and an array of other valuable material. . . . This dictionary will prove fascinating for anyone interested in the Iñupiat and their language.

  Lawrence Kaplan

  Alaska, Waiting, Language

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• And no, I'm not a walking C++ dictionary. I do not keep every technical detail in my head at all times. If I did that, I would be a much poorer programmer. I do keep the main points straight in my head most of the time, and I do know where to find the details when I need them.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Details, Would Be, Needs

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• The Devil will use our words and his dictionary.

  Adrian Rogers

  Devil, Our Words, Use

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• A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go.

  E. B. White

  Rain, Book, Thinking

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• Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources.

  Alan Thein Durning

  Mean, Oxford, Use

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• The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Innovation, Lexicographer, Use

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.149, University of Georgia Press

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• Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell well. to his daughter Martha

  Thomas Jefferson

  Daughter, Writing, Caring

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.45, Cambridge University Press

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• If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know? If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? Why is 'phonics' not spelled the way it sounds? How come abbreviated is such a long word?

  George Carlin

  Long, Way, Firsts

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• As an artist you're looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I'm striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they've swallowed a f... dictionary.

  Damien Hirst

  Hate, Writing, Artist

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• There's no such thing as an unabridged dictionary.

  Jack Lynch

  Jack Lynch (2009). “The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park”, p.96, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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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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