There's a measure of prescriptivism and descriptivism in every dictionary. Prescriptivism believes that the language should mirror the best practices of English, and editors are prescriptivist in so far as they don't want to let things they consider to be inelegant or ungrammatical into print.
Come English Settlement, I had it in my head that I didn't want to tour.
Shakespeare's taught me that there are more words in the English language than I have got in my head.
A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading.
In English we say 'we are' but it's proper to say 'we are becoming' because things are becoming.
The average college graduate's proficient literacy in English [the ability to read lengthy, complex texts and draw complicated inferences] has declined from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent ten years later.
Aw, come on. I barely speak English, unless we're talking about the Lowcountry kind.
English music is white - it evades everything.
The English language is nobody's special property.
The official language of the State of Illinois shall be known hereafter as the American language, and not the English language.
Sometimes the taproot and the vines are far apart. Like English and the Asian poem.
I was sick and tired of being an English actor who did a lot of American movies because I was cheap and good.
Hebrew has a system of tenses, which is, in a big way, different from the English system of tenses, probably different than any European system of tenses, which means a different sense of reality, which means a different concept of time.
The English language lacks the words 'to mourn an absence. ' For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only 'I am sorry for your loss. ' But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?
I am not accustomed to pay fulsome compliments to the English, by telling them that they are superior to all the world; but this I can say, that they do not deserve the name of cowards.
My accent was horrible. In Mexico, nobody says, 'You speak English with a good accent. ' You either speak English, or you don't: As long as you can communicate, no one cares.
The funniest line in English is 'Get it?' When you say that, everyone chortles.
What is the English for 'Refreshing towelette'?
The English are good at bad guys - the James Bond-style villain, cunning, slow-burning. The Americans are much more obvious about it.
She blinked at me, then realized I was panicking. Honestly, it was like admitting to murder before being interrogated. “Ms. Davidson,” she began, but I decided to trip her up, to throw her off the trail of blood I’d left like an injured animal. “I don’t speak English.