Human beings do not wish to be modest; they want to be as expressive – that is, as immodest – as fear allows; fashion helps them solve that paradoxical problem.

Fashion is custom in the guise of departure from custom.

The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one’s control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one’s free will.

Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

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

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.

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.

It is well known that the tense systems of French, English and German teem with logical inconsistencies as they are actually used.

It is true that English is not as complex in its formal structure as is German or Latin, but this does not dispose of the matter.

The supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed language.