The language of Doctor Johnson and Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, and that of their adult contemporaries, was the stately language of the time, polished, stylish, unordinary, even in the intimate pages of their diaries, and the regime of instruction was severe and practical.

Computer users soon learn that the miraculous powers of personal computers are based on avoidance of error.

American English is the greatest influence of English everywhere.

I believe it is imperative to see modern English grammar as a rich and diverse linguistic system deposited on our [England's] shores 1,500 years ago, and left with us unweakened, though substantially changed by the social and political events of the intervening period.

The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.

Lexicography is a chastening as well as an illuminating and fascinating art.

Vulgarity finds its antidote; old crudities become softened with time. Distinctions, both those that are useful and those that are burdensome, flourish and die, reflourish and die again.