Erin McKean Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“A love letter is to be savored; a love email... is to be forwarded to all your friends, and probably laughed at.”

“Ideally my goal is, before I die, to have some information about every word that's ever been used in print.”

“If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition.”

“'Aging' has been bad ever since we figured out it led to dying.”

“All words have life cycles.”

“If you say 'anti-aging,' how anti would it have to be, really? My guess is not much. Any amount of sunscreen could be considered anti-aging.”

“We've been using 'rejuvenate,' meaning to restore youth, to make young again, as a verb for at least 200 years.”

“Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.'”

“If words are doing their job, then their novelty will not be the most noticeable thing about them.”

“All language is a popularity contest.”