Quote

The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.

David Crystal

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David Crystal
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 6
Author
Linguist
Sociolinguist
Writer
English
Linguistics
Known
Linguistic
Story
Fingerprints
Left
Spelling
Stories
Unknown
Wells
Thousands
Well
Permanent
Fingerprint
People
Totally
Linguists

More quotes by David Crystal

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You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.
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Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.
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Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly.
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As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.
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Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.
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Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.
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Swearing makes an excellent relief mechanism
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At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects.
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Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.
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Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.
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Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.
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Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.
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A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.
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Research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.
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It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.
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Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.
David Crystal