The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.