David Crystal Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“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.”

“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.'”

“It hasn't been a problem with Ben, I think we worked together very well, we don't have rows.”

“Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.”

“Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.”

“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.”

“As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.”

“Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.”

“Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.”

“At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.”