42 Quotes About Word-choice

You can use the power of words to bury meaning or to excavate it.

He said it twice because he had never said it before, and it sounded funny.

The authors disclose that in less than a century the word "tension" grew from signifying a literal electric charge to a metaphor for emotional stress between two people. Writes Owen Barfield, "The scientists who discovered the forces of electricity actually made it possible for the human beings who came after them to have a slightly different idea, a slightly fuller consciousness of their relationship with one another.

One does not hold a conversation with him. One holds a symposium. – Elizabeth Drew

Whether the vessel is a legal document or a rap song, language is often chosen ot exclude. To use a scholarly phrase, "discourse communities" are often gated,so it's the good writer's job to offer readers a set of keys.

Lincoln on a desire to hear Horace Greeley speak: "In print, every one of his words seems to weigh about a ton.

One breaks into the canon only by aesthetic strength.

I have not done enough for effect." Horace Greeley

Only a writer "with Bennett's craft and brass could manage to praise and insult his readers at the same time.