Words of wisdom

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

From Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
 

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"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
George Bernard Shaw
 

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“Most of the disputes of the world arise from words."
William Murray, Morgan v Jones 1773
 

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“I can do it fast. I can do it cheap. I can do it well. Pick any two.”
Thom Rose
 

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"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."
Dr Samuel Johnson
 

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"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
 

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"I am sorry to write you such a long letter - I didn't have enough time to write a short one.”
Attributed to G K Chesterton, Winston Churchill and others
 

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“There is a weird power in a spoken word.”
Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim 1900
 

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“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Towne v Elsner 1918
 

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“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”
Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit 1887
 

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“[Warren Harding’s] speeches leave the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea.”
William G McAdoo, The Fine Art of Political Wit 1964
 

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