229 Quotes About Grammar

[M]y favorite teacher was explaining that you don't say but however. These are pleonasms: the use of more words than necessary to express an idea. There are times in life that are very but however.

A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.

There's a fine line between funny and annoying – and it's exactly the width of a quotation mark.

The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly ("It is believed...," instead of, "I believe..."), it deforms their thinking about themselves and their world. In a single stroke, we delude our students into believing that bad prose turns opinions into facts and we alienate them from their own inner lives.

I don't think anyone would think that an ellipsis represents doubt or anything. I think it's more, you know, hinting at the future. What lies ahead.

I come from the sort of family in which, at the age of ten, I was told I must always say hoi polloi, never "the hoi polloi," because hoi meant "the," and two "the's" were redundant -- indeed something only hoi polloi would say.

A misspelled word is probably an alias for some desperate call for aid, which is bound to fail.

If Language is a Flower then without Grammar it will not smell.

In this chthonian world the only thing of importance is orthography and punctuation. It doesn't matter what the nature of the calamity is, only whether it is spelled right.