American Squirm

LOGOPHOBIA

Logophobia refers to the condition of having an abnormal, extreme, and persistent fear of words.

NOAM CHOMSKY DID THE SAME TO MY COUSIN BULINNIA

Iowa substitute teacher who had sex with student says 17-year-old boy seduced her with ‘elevated vocabulary’: ‘I am the victim’

An Iowa substitute teacher accused of having sex with a student claims the 17-year-old boy seduced her with his “elevated vocabulary” and threatened to “burn her life down” when she threatened to leave.

You think we look pretty good together

SILVER TONGUED NOAM:

POOR BULINNIA:

HEY MIKHAIL BAKHTIN! QUID EST VERITAS?

Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.

-MB

HEY MIKA B! THANKS FOR THE ANALYSIS! HOW DID YOU ACQUIRE SUCH A WAY WITH WORDS?

I think both sides you could argue should be doing so much better, but dot dot dot what is, finish the sentence.

-MB

VENCESLAUS ULRICUS HAMMERSHAIMB

Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb  was a Faroese Lutheran minister who established the modern orthography of Faroese, the language of the Faroe Islands.

BO DEREK - ON LANGUAGE

It's really difficult for me. Language, I am sorry that I haven't. I think I just always expected that you learn a word in place of a word and when I discovered how difficult the grammar was and learning that was very discouraging for me.

-BD

HEY KIM! SHOULDN'T THAT BE IF I "WERE" A MAN? (SUBJUNCTIVE TAKES THE PLURAL FORM OF THE VERB.)

If I was a man, I would want to know what it's like to have sex with myself. I would just want to know what it would feel like.

-KK

EZRA POUND

The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati …when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.

-EP

HOW DO THEY GET THEM AWAY FROM THE ORANGS?

ERIC IDLE

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.

-EI

JARED ALLEN

I don’t think anyone on this team knows what ‘schism’ is, let alone could use it in a sentence. I thought it was an STD when I first heard it and was like ‘whoa, we preach abstinence in these parts.

-JA

NICK HORNBY - ON DECORUM

How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are these gaps in speech where you just have to put a "fuck." I'll tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, I'd be like, "And the motherfuckers flew the fucking plane right into the Twin Towers." How could you not, if you're a human being? Maybe they're not so admirable. Maybe they're robot zombies.

-NH

GEORGE WASHINGTON - ON CUSSING

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

-GW 

PAUL K. FEYERABEND

Without a constant misuse of language, there cannot be any discovery, any progress.

-PKF

RUBUY-TIBUY

The ideophone ribuy-tibuy, from the northern Indian language Mundari, describes the sight, motion and sound of a fat person’s buttocks as he or she walks.

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WERNER HEISENBERG

 

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms. But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language.

 

-WH

PATTI SMITH - ON THE PERKS OF SENIOR CITIZENRY

I don’t like being pinned down and I’ll say what the fuck I want - especially at my age.

-PS

RICHARD HARRIS

Jesus is just a word I use to swear with.

-RH

MARTINA HINGIS

I still speak Czech with my parents because I was born there.

-MH

BROOKE BURKE - ON INAPPROPRIATE TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

 

I don't want to discuss my breasts with the whole world!

 

-BB

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

 

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

 

-FSF

MAGGIE CHEUNG

Words like "fabulous", "wonderful", "great", "absolutely gorgeous" they don't exist in Cantonese. It's good, or it's O.K. That's it. It's very blunt, Cantonese. I appreciate that there are no fake words, but it's hard to switch channels, sometimes, after I've spent time in France. I'm just learning to use more generous words myself, but you know, "gorgeous", I just can't go to that extreme.

-MC

BOB NEWHART

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.

-BN

CARLA GUGINO

Well, first of all, I'm an incredibly gullible person - I'm so bad that when I said that to someone, my friend said, 'You know, 'gullible' isn't even in the dictionary.' And I said, 'Really?' As I was saying 'Really?' I will acknowledge that I then realized what was happening, but that's how bad I am.

-CG

TIM BURTON

I have a problem when people say something's real or not real, or normal or abnormal. The meaning of those words for me is very personal and subjective. I've always been confused and never had a clearcut understanding of the meaning of those kinds of words.

-TB

JOE THEISMAN - LINGUISTIC RELATIVIST

I think sometimes people perceive words in their own particular way.

-JT

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE - ON OWNING SUBSTANDARD REFERENCE WORKS

The word impossible is not in my dictionary.

-NB

GUSTAV MAHLER

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. 

-GM

OLIVIA MUNN - ON THE TYPES OF GEEKS THERE ARE

The word 'geek' today does not mean what it used to mean. A geek isn't the skinny kid with a pocket protector and acne. There can be computer geeks, video game geeks, car geeks, military geeks, and sports geeks. Being a geek just means that you're passionate about something.

-OM

ISABELLA ADJANI - ON NOTHING

 

 

Nothingness not being nothing, nothingness being emptiness.

 

-IA 

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE - ON WEAPONS

Words are loaded pistols.

-JPS

DREAMA WALKER

When I get nervous, I get word vomit.

-DW

MAYBE IF SHE'D PAID ATTENTION IN SCHOOL, SHE WOULD KNOW THAT SHE WAS UNINTERESTED, NOT DISINTERESTED. BUT IF SHE HAD PAID ATTENTION SHE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN DIS/UN INTERESTED, WOULD SHE?

LIZA WEIL

I had a really hard time in school, so it’s pretty funny for me to play such a smart person. I’m not saying I’m not smart, I was a little disinterested.

RALPH WALSO EMERSON - ON QUOTATIONS

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

-RWE

CHRISTINE BARANSKI - ON PRONUNCIATION

The sibilant s is the most difficult sound to correct.

-CB

JACQUES LACAN EXPLAINS OBSESSION

Obsessional does not necessarily mean sexual obsession, not even obsession for this, or for that in particular; to be an obsessional means to find oneself caught in a mechanism, in a trap increasingly demanding and endless.

-JL

RACHEL MADDOW

I would like to be a polyglot.

-RM

ALAN SIMPSON - LEXICOGRAPHER

Do you know the difference between naked and nekkid? If you’re naked, you don’t have any clothes on, but if you’re nekkid you don’t have any clothes on but you’re up to something.

-AS

ANDREW JACKSON - ON ORTHOGRAPHY

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.

-AJ

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY - ON SURPRISES

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

-MM

DREW BARRYMORE - ON WORDS

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.

-DB

RACHAEL LEIGH COOK

Sometimes I say things that I can't believe came out of my mouth. Or I won't mean something and it will come out completely nonsensical.

-RLC

KURT GODEL

The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.

-KG

MAXIM GORKY

The most beautiful words in the English language are 'not guilty'.

-MG

BOOMER ESIASON - ON THE SUPER BOWL VENUE

New York is well adept in handling situations such as this.

-BE

STOP THE WORLD. HE WANTS TO GET OFF. (LITERALLY, ONE CAN HOPE.)

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM HAS SOME NEWS

The world is literally about to blow up.

-LG

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E. L. DOCTOROW

I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn't need them, they were fly-specks on the page.

-ELD

UMBERTO ECO - ON LANGUAGE

As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

-UE

WILLA CATHER

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.

-WC

JEAN-LUC GODARD

To be or not to be. That's not really a question.

-JLC