Amoebas, once they have themselves well pulled in two, go their ways-they practice divorce, but no remarriage.

Civilization could not exist until there was written language, because without written language no generation could bequeath to succeeding generations anything but its simpler findings.

Jazz was formerly a crude term for indulging in an action which in polite society is referred to, if at all, only with such vague Latin terms as intercourse and cohabitation.

Language is a living thing. It must survive in men's minds and on their tongues if it survives at all.

Grammar is not a set of rules; it is something inherent in the language, and language cannot exist without it. It can be discovered, but not invented.

Quite naturally, scholars assumed that Latin grammar was not merely Latin grammar, but that it was grammar itself. They borrowed it and made the most of it.

If language is intimately related to being human, then when we study language we are, to a remarkable degree, studying human nature.