Words on Words: Quotations about Language and Languages

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University of Chicago Press, Oct 15, 2000 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 580 pages
From Homer ("winged words") to Robert Burns ("Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung") to Rudyard Kipling ("Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind"), writers from all over the world have put pen to paper on the inexhaustible topic of language. Yet surprisingly, their writings on the subject have never been gathered in a single volume. In Words on Words, David and Hilary Crystal have collected nearly 5,000 quotations about language and all its intriguing aspects: speaking, reading, writing, translation, verbosity, usage, slang, and more. As the stock-in-trade of so many professions—orators, media personalities, writers, and countless others—language's appeal as a subject is extraordinarily relevant and wide-ranging.

The quotations are grouped thematically under 65 different headings, from "The Nature of Language" through the "Language of Politics" to "Quoting and Misquoting." This arrangement enables the reader to explore a topic through a variety of lenses, ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, scientific and casual, ironic and playful. Three thorough indexes—to authors, sources, and key words—provide different entry points into the collection. A valuable resource for professional writers and scholars, Words on Words is for anyone who loves language and all things linguistic.
 

Contents

Language in Thinking and Thought
9
Body Language
23
Everchanging Language
36
The Language of Youth and Age
50
Bilingualism and Multilingualism
66
Translating and Interpreting
70
Exposing Language
87
Listening
100
Words Words Words
187
Words as Weapons
202
Wornout Words
215
The Secret of Style
231
Metaphors and Similes
246
Accents and Dialects
248
The Language of Politics
263
The Performing Arts
278

Learning to Read and Write
113
The Nature of Eloquence
131
Subjectmatter
147
Saying Just Enough
160
Friendly Language
168
Postscript
292
Index of Sources
317
Index of Key Words Phrases and Concepts
336
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

David Crystal is a writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on language. His more than one hundred books include The Stories of English, Wordsmiths and Warriors, The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation, and The Story of Be. Hilary Crystal practiced for several years as a speech therapist and has worked editorially on various projects, including The Cambridge Encyclopedia.

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