SS > factoids > English language

England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

English, n. A language so haughty and reserved that few writers succeed in getting on terms of familiarity with it

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, 1967

Un homme qui parle trois langues est trilingue. Un homme qui parle deux langues est bilingue. Un homme qui ne parle qu'une langue est anglais.

-- Claude Gagnière

adjective order
and, starting a sentence with
Jane Austen Info Page and the singular "they" construction
- Or try the Jane Austin Homepage, dedicated to the famous "Calamity Jane" Austin, early 19th Century Texan author, frontierswoman, and proto-feminist. With reviews of her works including Winchester Park, The Persuader, and Fence and Fencibility.
The Project Bartleby Archive provides English texts resources on-line, including Bartlett's Quotations
book reviews
- Bill Bryson. Mother Tongue
- Sir Ernest Gowers. The Complete Plain Words
figures of speech
grok
Richard Lederer's Verbivore -- a web site "woven for wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores"
The Underground Grammarian -- dedicated to preserving the works of Richard Mitchell
negative-only words
only
plurals
pronunciation
William Safire's rules for writers
spelling
split infinitive
World Wide Words -- Michael Quinion's language pages, including "Turns of Phrase", "Topical Words", "Weird Words", and articles about the English language
who/whom

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

-- James D. Nicoll

other languages