It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.

Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.

You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.