"English language" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... police force of this State is exclusively recruited from the burgher element, many of the police being youths fresh from rural districts, without experience or tact, and in many instances without general education or a knowledge of the English language; therefore, as a whole, entirely out of sympathy with the British section of the community, which forms the majority of ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... recommended to me, have made me aghast. I'm not very young, nor I think very priggish; but I do decline to look at life and its complexities solely and entirely from a point of view that (bar Christian names and the English language) would do equally well for a pig or a monkey. If I am no more than a Pig, I'm a fairly "learned" pig, and will back myself to get some small piggish pleasures out of this mortal stye, before I go to the Butcher!! But—IF—I am something very different, and ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... it originated in Germany, has survived and developed itself in Britain only, the Buddhist creed, once indigenous to the continent of Hindostan, is now found nowhere between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin; whilst beyond the pale of India, it is as widely extended as the English language is beyond the limits of Germany. The rival religion of the Brahmins expelled it. Which of the two was the older is uncertain. Still more difficult is it to determine how far each is a separate substantive ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... society. Listen!" And, playing a dreamy, murmuring prelude like the sound of a brook flowing through a hollow cavern, he sang Swinburne's "Leave-Taking," surely one of the saddest and most beautiful poems in the English language. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... infinitive "to rescue" and its object are the subject of the verb "was," and the construction is perfectly grammatical. Unfortunately the English language has another infinitive which very much resembles a present participle—the infinitive ending in -ing; e.g., rescuing. Without an article this part of speech must, of course, be used only as an adjective, ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Indian work is the out-stations, located remote from the Central Stations. These stations, numbering twenty-one, have been hindered and also enlarged during the past year. The hindrance came from the interference of the Government. In its well-intended zeal for the introduction of the English language, it surpassed the limits which experience had fixed, by requiring that the vernacular should not be taught, nor even spoken, in any Indian schools on the Reservation including these mission stations, which were wholly sustained by benevolent funds. ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... Fools' is placed under the essay entitled 'Sebastian Brandt.' His 'Eclogues' show Barclay at his best. They portray the manners and customs of the period, and are full of local proverbs and wise sayings. According to Warton, Barclay's are the first 'Eclogues' that appeared in the English language. "They are like Petrarch's," he says, "and Mantuans of the moral and satirical kind; and contain but few touches of moral description and bucolic imagery." Two shepherds meet to talk about the pleasures and crosses of rustic life and life at court. The hoary locks of the one show that he is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... examination shall not include more than the following subjects: Orthography, copying, penmanship, arithmetic (fundamental rules, fractions, percentage, interest, and discount), elements of bookkeeping and accounts, elements of the English language, letter writing, elements of the geography, history, and government of the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... you neither. Who got caught eatin' off the ice cream freezer spoon out on the back porch, if you please? Yes, and I guess you better study a little grammar, while you're about it. There's no such words in the English language as 'cluckling' and 'chuttering.'" ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... but they caused no great change in the language. In the year 1066 the Norman Conquest took place, and William the Conqueror became King of England. Large numbers of the Norman French came with him, and French became the language of the court and of the nobility. By degrees our English language grew out of the blending of the Anglo-Saxon of the common people and the Norman French of their new rulers, the former furnishing most of the grammar, the latter supplying many of the words. Now the French was of Latin origin, and the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Tennyson, 'that's a verse, and a very bad one too.' And they would afterwards humorously contend for the authorship of the worst line in the English language. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... the conceptive faculty fails you; in the other the descriptive. I, who have seen this sight, am not foolish enough to undertake to put it down with pencil on paper. I think I know something of the limitations of the written English language. What I do mean to try to do in this chapter is to record some of my impressions ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... the use of slang terms. There are surely words enough in the English language to express all the thoughts and ideas of the mind, and it is a sign of pure vulgarity to employ synonyms, the only remarkable part of which is that they derive their existence solely from vulgar sources. In a gentleman such ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... render a willing service. I recall the faithfulness of the Chinaman "Fred," who tried to please his employer, and also the fidelity and zeal of "Max," the Dane, or Mads Christensen. Max was an ideal waiter. He had been only nine months in the United States, and yet he had learned sufficient of the English language to understand what was said to him and to express himself clearly. It is an example of persistence; and Max had the qualities which, in a young man, are bound to ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... spending of that evening? How can I get sufficient power out of the English language to let you know what a nuisance that bird was to us? How can I tell you of the cool manner in which he inspected our domestic arrangements, walking slowly from room to room, and standing on one leg till his ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... that the children sooner acquire the English language by mixing among the towns people. This, however, to say the least, is a very negative advantage, for in such a contact it is far more probable that they will learn evil than good; besides, if means were available to enable the masters to keep their scholars under proper restrictions, there ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... The English language contains a great many words and phrases which are made up of two or more words combined or related in such a way as to form a new verbal phrase having a distinct meaning of its own and differing ...
— Compound Words - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #36 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... are not the rivals of their British associates in the literature of the English language—they are worthy comrades. Wordsworth and Byron are not Shakespeare and Milton, but they are nevertheless Wordsworth and Byron, and their place is secure. So the brows of Irving and Cooper, of Bryant and Longfellow, and of Lowell, of Emerson and Hawthorne ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Boldero," said he, "I am second only to you in my admiration and grief, and there's nothing I wouldn't do to keep your husband's memory green. But it is green, thank goodness. How do I know? By two signs. One that people wherever the English language is spoken are eagerly reading his books—I say reading, because you deprecate the purely commercial side of things; but you must forgive me if I say that the only proof of all their reading is the record of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... hearth was the holy place, the altar of the castle and of the family. There was room in its wide expanse for the gathering of a household about the fire; its embrace was the embrace of love; and it was the type and model of those venerable and hallowed places which have given to the English language a word holier even than "Home," since that ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... command, a young gentleman of elegant appearance (so far as I could judge of him in traveller's garb) who sat at the table. His greetings equalled mine in politeness, and we fell into talk on different matters, he using the English language, which he spoke with remarkable fluency, although evidently as a foreigner. His manner was easy and assured, and I took it for no more than an accident that his pistol lay ready to his hand, beside a small case or pocket-book of leather on the table. He asked me my business, and I told him simply ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... have some reason for not talking Italian. One of the Gospels was printed in it; I need hardly say with what effect. The first verse runs, 'Lo vo famili va Jesus Christus, pikien. (piccaninny) va David, dissi da pikien va Abraham.' [Footnote: Da Njoe Testament, &c. Translated into the negro-English language by the missionaries of the Unitas Fratrum, &c. Printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. London: W. McDowall, Pemberton ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... commanded some of his clergy to keep a record from year to year of things which happened in his kingdom. This record was called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and was the first history written in the English language. It was carefully kept for many years after Alfred's death. Another wise thing Alfred did was to collect the laws or "dooms" of the earlier kings, so that every one might know what the ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... once for the doctor, and for the mothers of the respective infants. When the doctor arrived he pronounced the trouble to be measles; and when the mothers made their appearance, Virginia learned something of the unsuspected resources of the English language served hot from the tongues of three frightened and irate women. Finally the floor was cleared, and the place closed up ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... decline a statement of the circumstances which, he presumes to hope, will give some prospect of the work being received with attention and indulgence, perhaps with favour. It certainly is the only General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels that has been hitherto attempted in the English language, upon any arrangement that merits the appellation of a systematic plan. And hence, should the plan adopted be found only comparatively good, in so far the system of arrangement must be pronounced the best that has been as yet devised. If this be conceded, and the fact is too obvious to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... if we suppose him to have possessed all that is most valuable in the literature of Rome, I say with perfect confidence that, both in respect of intellectual improvement, and in respect of intellectual pleasures, he was far less favourably situated than a man who now, knowing only the English language, has a bookcase filled with the best English works. Our great man of the Middle Ages could not form any conception of any tragedy approaching Macbeth or Lear, or of any comedy equal to Henry the Fourth ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Abolitionism applied to a new material and translated into rowdy journalism. The Abolitionists, believing as they did, that the institution of slavery violated an abstract principle of political justice, felt thereby fully authorized to vilify the Southern slaveholders as far as the resources of the English language would permit. They attempted to remedy one injustice by committing another injustice; and by the violence of their methods they almost succeeded in tearing apart the good fabric of our national life. Hearst ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... mainly by himself as editor or put into the hands of others representing the recent critical research, this very important work of reference, which had been in previous editions so timid, was now arrayed on the side of the newer thought, insuring its due consideration wherever the English language is spoken. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... thrown off that magnificent piece of Miltonic prose at the heat, without some deep premeditation. It is well known now that Mr. Webster afterwards pruned, amended and decorated it until it is recognized as one of the grandest passages in the English language. I take down my Webster and read it occasionally, and it has in it the majestic "sound of many waters." That great passage is the prelude of the mighty conflict which thirty years afterwards was to be waged on the soil of Gettysburg and Chickamauga. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... have seemed absurd—as absurd as it has seemed to some of their descendants in the nineteenth century, that an English grammar-school or an English university should trouble itself about such aboriginal products of the English skull, as English language and literature. But by the end of the sixteenth century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was a moving of the waters: the Renascence of ancient learning had itself brought into English use thousands of learned words, from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages, ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... conversational power was equalled only by his marvellous style. Ernest Fielding's heart leaped in him at the thought that henceforth he would be privileged to live under one roof with the only writer of his generation who could lend to the English language the rich strength and ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become early English. We are again introduced to the English language more generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... discordant, though the manner was refined and the person well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so skilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not perfectly acquainted with the English language to understand, or, even understanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate was its tone. After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, the speaker again ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... keeps a bird, and we find it is an ostrich, there will be considerable point in the Colorado satirist saying inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were offering us a small slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this root and rationale of a joke, the English language already contains quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some bird'; there is a far finer irony in the old expression, 'Something like a bird.' It suggests that the speaker sees something faintly and strangely birdlike about a bird; that it remotely ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... remained strong in 2001 with adequate foreign exchange reserves, and moderately depreciating nominal exchange rates. Growth in manufacturing output has slowed, and electricity shortages continue in many regions. India has large numbers of well-educated people skilled in English language; India is a major exporter of software services and ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... defaulter, embezzler, burglar, yeggman, robber, bandit, marauder, pirate, and many more; or the distinctions among Hebrew, Jew, Israelite, and Semite. Remember that no book of synonyms is trustworthy unless used with a dictionary. "A Thesaurus of the English Language," by Dr. Francis A. March, is expensive, but full and authoritative. Of smaller books of synonyms ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... present book Mr. WALTER JERROLD devotes a large amount of space to a review of DOUGLAS JERROLD'S theatrical pieces. Where now is a five-act comedy, entitled Bubbles of the Day, which at the time of its production was described as "one of the wittiest and best constructed comedies in the English language"? I am afraid that this comedy, and even Black-eyed Susan, JERROLD'S greatest triumph, have passed away into the limbo of forgotten plays and can never return to us. Another drama had in it as one of the characters "a certain cowardly English traveller ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... recovered. His subsequent life was that of an habitual invalid. He was forced to maintain a constant battle with disease. While spreading the principles of health in a multitude of households, wherever the English language is spoken, by his lucid writings on the subject, he was scarcely permitted for a single day to enjoy the inestimable treasure. He, consequently, spent no small portion of his time in traveling in different countries, visiting France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... where it is"), where secret organizations are mustering their forces and gathering in material of war for which there can be no possible use except to revolutionize this country through the fearful experience of civil war. (A voice—"Shame on them.") O how I long for some knowledge of the English language so that I may select a word or a phrase which shall fully express the enormity of this treason! (Voices —"Hang them." ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... observe birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such a manner, that the day seems to follow the night." (Bell. Gall. vi. 18.) The vestiges of this method of computation still appear in the English language, in the terms se'nnight ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... is Stateburgh. But so great is the propensity of Americans for introducing the S into the already hissing English language, that it is now written ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... the heads. Can't you do it now? Oh, the rising generation! Oh, the progress we are making in these enlightened modern times! There! there! you can marry Blanche, and make her happy, and increase the population—and all without knowing how to write the English language. One can only say with the learned Bevorskius, looking out of his window at the illimitable loves of the sparrows, 'How merciful is Heaven to its creatures!' Take up the pen. I'll ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... taste for Italian literature, and at the same time published his "Literary Scourge," a criticism of the ancient and modern writers of Italy. His style, though always pure, is often caustic. He wrote several books in the English language, one of which is in defense of Shakspeare against Voltaire. Cesarotti (1730-1808), though eminent as a critic, introduced into the Italian language some innovations, which contributed to its corruption; while ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... "Why," said he, "the English language is an ambiguity—two negatives make an affirmative; but in the Latin, two negatives make a positive."—"Then," said the Chancellor, "your father and mother must have been two negatives, to make such a positive fellow ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... limitations under which they can be used in construction. This rule teaches us how we can correctly form thousands of sentences on the model of one, instead of regarding each as so many distinct phenomena. One Grammarian, Lennie, 47th Ed., defines Grammar as the art of speaking and writing the English Language with propriety. I venture to say that in dealing with a foreign language one cannot express one's self with accuracy, nay one cannot be confident of expressing one's own meaning at all without a grammatical knowledge of it. But, of course, ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... Indian words, like bundobust, for which there is no equivalent in the English language, and which are at once so comprehensive and so expressive that, when once the use of them has been acquired, they become indispensable, so that they have gained a permanent place in the Anglo-Indian's vocabulary. ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... "Songbird" Powell, a school chum given to the making of doggerel which he persisted in calling poetry, Fred Garrison, who had stood by the Rovers through thick and thin, and Hans Mueller, a German youth who had not yet fully mastered the English language. To make the trip more interesting the boys invited an old friend, Mrs. Stanhope, to accompany them, and also Mrs. Laning, her sister. With Mrs. Stanhope was a daughter Dora, who Dick Rover thought was the best and sweetest girl in the whole world, and with Mrs. Laning were her ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... dislike is twofold; one, because we are accounted too severe and precise, which is very displeasing to those who fear reproof; the other is, because formerly, though without our knowledge, during the lifetime of Queen MARY, two books were published here in the English language, one by Master KNOX against the Government of Women, the other by Master GOODMAN on ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... he says, "Dryden's poetry was gifted in a degree surpassing in modulated harmony that of all who had preceded him and inferior to none that has since written English verse [sic]. He first showed"—and here we see Scott's eighteenth-century affinities—"that the English language was capable of ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... fortunate enough at this epoch to attract the notice of X——, the poet. He believed in me, and encouraged me to believe in myself. It is one of the regrets of my life that he died before I had achieved my celebrity. However, I have achieved it. My name is a household word wherever the English language is read. I have written the only novels of my time that are sure to live. They will live not only by virtue of their style and matter, but because of a quality they possess which I must call universal—a quality which ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... educated in the city of Gouda, I ran continually across Erasmus and for some unknown reason this great exponent of tolerance took hold of my intolerant self. Later I discovered Anatole France and my first experience with the English language came about through an accidental encounter with Thackeray's "Henry Esmond," a story which made more impression upon me than any other book ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... inheritance, continued contact with the mother country, and local conditions. Coming largely from the middle class in England, though with some connections with the squirearchy through younger sons, they brought with them the English language, English political institutions, the Anglican Church, English love of liberty. This inheritance was buttressed by their political and cultural dependence on the mother country. But it was profoundly affected, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... eloquence, determination, and steadfastness of purpose can help him to fulfil his mission, he will assuredly succeed. He is from America, though born of British parents, and the first thing I gathered from him was an overwhelming desire to study and to master the English language— not because it was English, but because it was the universal language spoken by America. I felt from what he said then,—and I feel still from what I have learnt and know now,—that America has all the future in the hollow of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Richard Baxter, William Penn, Sir H. Vane, and many others of our most pious forefathers; and they must feel that it was a miracle of mercy that saved the life of Bunyan, and gave him leisure to write not only his popular allegories, but the most valuable treatises in the English language upon subjects of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the language of dreams; that is to say, that although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been uttered in the English language, nor in any language known to him; yet, as is the way with one who ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... Tragedies," added little to a reputation won in other fields. His sonnets, particularly those upon "Chaucer," "Milton," "The Divina Commedia," "A Nameless Grave," "Felton," "Sumner," "Nature," "My Books," are among the imperishable treasures of the English language. In descriptive pieces like "Keramos" and "The Hanging of the Crane," in such personal and occasional verses as "The Herons of Elmwood," "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz," and the noble "Morituri Salutamus" ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Lansdowne, in his reply, undertook "to combine instruction in the Gaelic with the English language in the Highland as well as the Welsh schools, and to have a view to it in ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... to the word like as expressive in the English language of three distinct ideas, and in the A.-S. of at least four; is it not possible that these meanings, which, as we find the words used, are undoubtedly widely distinct, having travelled to us by separate channels, may nevertheless have had originally one and the same source? I should be glad to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... appointed Professor of Natural History. He is known to us, however, only as the biographer of Cicero. Of this book, Monk, the biographer of Middleton's great opponent, Bentley, declares that, "for elegance, purity, and ease, Middleton's style yields to none in the English language." De Quincey says of it that, by "weeding away from it whatever is colloquial, you would strip it of all that is characteristic"—meaning, I suppose, that the work altogether wants dignity of composition. This charge is, to my thinking, so absolutely contrary ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... which they submit, the insults which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human or womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of the English language necessary for the compiling of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Hervey White in Differences is not like that of any author I have ever read in the English language. It resembles strongly the work of the best Russian novelists, it seems to me, and particularly that of Dostolevsky, and yet it is in no sense an imitation of those writers: it is apparently like them merely because the author's motives and ways of thought and observation ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... Chester!" shouted Hal. "We can't let that gang of hoodlums beat up anyone who speaks the English language." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... an Irishman, and was already known as a writer. He became Rockingham's secretary in 1765, and a seat was provided for him. Unsurpassed in his mastery of English prose, he exhibits to the full the splendour of the English language in his speeches and pamphlets. Nor is his thought unworthy of the gorgeous attire with which it is invested. His power and constant habit of discerning and expounding the principles which were involved in questions of the moment, give him a supreme place ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Rome and Douay, appeared to little advantage when compared with the eloquence of Tillotson and Sherlock. It seemed that it was no light thing to have secured the cooperation of the greatest living master of the English language. The first service which he was required to perform in return for his pension was to defend his Church in prose against Stillingfleet. But the art of saying things well is useless to a man who has nothing to say; and this was Dryden's case. He soon found himself unequally paired with an ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Conwell, the English Ancestor who fought for the Preservation of the English Language. Martin Conwell of Maryland. A Runaway Marriage. The ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... on in endless variety, on all sorts of subjects. Further illustration shall be dispensed with, seeing that the ancient distich is a poetic form for which the English language has, at the best, but little sympathy. In German it goes much better; and for Schiller in particular, with his natural love of antithesis, it proved a ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Intelligencer picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered and thoroughly fitting gutter, and pays you well, mark that, you feebleminded counterfeit of a confidenceman, pays you well, not for your futile, lecherous pawings at the chastity of the English language, but out of the boundless generosity which only a newspaper with a great soul can have. And what do you propose to do in gratitude? To run, to flee, to hide from the expression of authority, to bring disgrace upon the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... amazement that appeared on the faces of Linden and Bowlby. Here was a young Indian teaching a white man old enough to be his father how to spell in the English language! ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... profanity. It is, "I declare!" "My stars!" "Mercy on me!" "Good gracious!" "By George!" "By Jove!" and "By heavens!" and no harm is intended; but it is a very easy transition from this kind of talk to that which is positively obnoxious. The English language is magnificent, and capable of expressing every shade of feeling and every degree of energy and zeal; and there is no need that we take to ourselves unlawful words. If you are happy, Noah Webster offers to your tongue ten thousand epithets in which you may express your exhilaration; and if ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... those two young men were delighted would be to use but one of the commonplace, everyday, decent conversational expressions of the English language. They were ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... was shown to it by a bright-eyed, garrulous Cuban youth named "Josepho," who was well acquainted with his own, but lamentably ignorant of the English language. He tried to compensate for this drawback by a copious and intelligent use of gesture. Josepho soon led me to my room, which stood at the end of a corridor, that was flanked on one side by the courtyard, and on the other by sleeping apartments. Two great ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... know, in the first place, that I had a very great advantage in having some knowledge of the English language. I learned it during the months that I spent before Danzig, from Adjutant Obriant, of the Regiment Irlandais, who was sprung from the ancient kings of the country. I was quickly able to speak it with some facility, for I do not take ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rival, but his addresses are coldly received.[24] In an ecstasy of delight, after a four hours' tete-a-tete with Kaethchen, he treats Behrisch to some lines of English verse which may be produced here as exhibiting the state of his feelings and the extent of his acquaintance with the English language:— ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... objective point was Sierra Leone, from which place the British Government assisted them to their homes. Their stay in the United States did the anti-slavery cause great good. Here were poor, naked, savage pagans, unable to speak English, in less than three years able to speak the English language and appreciate the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... one little blaze in a candy-shop on Seventh Avenue. Most of the time we sat around trying to draw the men out about their thrilling experiences at fires. But if there is one thing the fireman doesn't know it is the English language when talking about himself. It was quite late when we turned into the neat white ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... Dyce and Forster Collections rightly says that:—"This is a gift which will ever have the highest value, and be regarded with the deepest interest by people of every English-speaking nation, as long as the English language exists. Not only our own countrymen, but travellers from every country and colony into which Englishmen have spread, may here examine the original manuscripts of books which have been more widely read than any other uninspired writings throughout the world. Thousands, it ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... the fort, Frank?" said his companion. "We have a Fort Good Hope, and a Fort Resolution, and a Fort Enterprise already. It seems as if all the vigorous and hearty words in the English language were used up in naming the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company. What ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... never come," he said. In spite of the intervening space of time, the English language was still almost exactly the same as it had been in England under Victoria the Good. The invention of the phonograph and suchlike means of recording sound, and the gradual replacement of books by such contrivances, had not only saved the human eyesight ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the erring lyricist too much. It isn't his fault that he does these things. It is the fault of the English language. Whoever invented the English language must have been a prose-writer, not a versifier; for he has made meagre provision for the poets. Indeed, the word "you" is almost the only decent chance he has given them. You can do something with a word like "you." It rhymes with "sue," "eyes of blue," ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... could roll up the sleeve of a man and give him a hypodermic of some solution that would, by some strange alchemy, transform him into a good American citizen; as if you could take him water, and in it make a mixture—one part the ability to read and write and speak the English language; then another part, the Declaration of Independence; one part, the Constitution of the United States; one part, a love for apple pie; one part, a desire and a willingness to wear American shoes; and another part, a pride in ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... equally good illustration also of that curious process which, in the English language, has in time created for a single word ("cleave," for instance) two exactly opposite meanings. A line from John Webster's Appius and Virginia might be cited as showing how near his diction ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... returned home just before dinner, and found a motley throng of bearded warriors assembled in front of the house, they were trying to make themselves intelligible in the English language to some of the constables, and when the latter respectfully saluted Maria, raised their hands to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the English language, since the making of our King James version of the Bible, many new words have been introduced, and many old ones have ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... theories. It is claimed[42] that his conversion to Communism was the result of the chance placing of a Fourierist paper upon the table of a Berlin coffeehouse, by Albert Brisbane, the brilliant friend and disciple of Fourier, his first exponent in the English language. This may well be true, for, as we shall see, Weitling's views are mainly based upon those of the great French Utopist. In 1842 Weitling published his best-known work, the book upon which his literary fame chiefly rests, "The Guaranties of Harmony and Freedom." This work at once attracted wide ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... its history distanced all rival clans and, from Alfred to William III, from tribe to Empire, has cherished and sustained a system of civil and religious liberty, which, intolerant of every form of oppression, has made the English language ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... our tramp, I trudged step for step with Joseph, who had Finois' bridle over his arm, and answered my questions regarding the various features of the landscape. Thus I was not long in discovering that he had a knowledge of the English language of which he was innocently proud. I made some enquiry concerning a fern which grew above the roadside, when we had passed through Martigny Bourg, and Joseph answered that one did not see it often in this country. "It is a seldom plant," ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Archie jerked this out, nervously trying to conceal his Harvard training in the use of the English language by resorting to such terms as he imagined bold bad men employ in moments ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... glossary, serving as an introduction to the history of the English Language. By FRIEDRICH KLUGE, Professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and author of Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprache, and FREDERICK LUTZ, Professor at Albion College, Mich. Cloth. 242 pages. Introduction price, ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... instead of waiting until the following evening, against his own judgment and in direct opposition to that peculiar mental reaction called "a hunch" by those not familiar with the niceties of the English language, and called nothing really more expressive by ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... was a new stir in the atmosphere of old Detroit. For General Wayne with the prescience of an able and far-sighted patriot had said, "To make good citizens they must learn the English language and there must be schools. Education will be the corner stone of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... scheduled to come on line in 2006. In its rivalry with India as an economic power, China has a lead in the absorption of technology, the rising prominence in world trade, and the alleviation of poverty; India has one important advantage in its relative mastery of the English language, but the number of competent Chinese English-speakers ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... sprang a new time of hope lighted by the torch of the French Revolution: and things that have languished with the languishing of art, rose afresh and surely heralded its new birth: in good earnest poetry was born again, and the English Language, which under the hands of sycophantic verse- makers had been reduced to a miserable jargon, whose meaning, if it have a meaning, cannot be made out without translation, flowed clear, pure, and simple, along with the music of Blake and Coleridge: take those names, the earliest in date ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... this extraordinary personage in French; at which he became very superior and announced: "J'suis anglais, moi. Parlez anglais. Comprends pas francais, moi." At this a crowd escorted him over to B. and me—anticipating great deeds in the English language. Jean looked at us critically and said: "Vous parlez anglais? Moi parlez anglais."—"We are Americans, and speak English," I answered.—"Moi anglais," Jean said. "Mon pere, capitaine de gendarmes, Londres. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... speculation, objects rising to the dignity of a mundane or cosmopolitish value, which challenge at this time more than ever a growing intellectual interest, is the English language. Why particularly at this time? Simply, because the interest in that language rests upon two separate foundations: there are two separate principles concerned in its pretensions; and by accident in part, but in part also through the silent and inevitable march of human progress, there has been steadily ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... set himself resolutely to the work of self-education. His knowledge of the English language was meagre in the extreme; and he succeeded at last only by making for himself a kind of grammar by reading and observation. He then tried French, but his native indolence prevailed, and he gave it up in despair. He read with avidity whatever books came in his way; and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... real mother had been an accomplished woman, and had taken great pains with her education. She was well instructed in the English branches, and had read five books of Virgil in Latin. Her reading had not been extensive, but it had embraced some of the best books in the English language. Her musical education had been received from a German uncle, who had been instructed by Herr Wieck, the father of Clara Schumann. He had been a great lover of Schumann's dreamy and spiritual music, and had taught her the young composer's pieces ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intended to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people. [Footnote: ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... 13.—On the corruptions of the English language since the reign of Queen Ann, in our style of writing prose. A few easy rules for the attainment of a manly, unaffected and pure language, in our genuine mother tongue, whether for the purpose of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its enchanting naivete, as are supreme and unapproachable, in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in literature, is imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... biography of the great composer that is extant in the English language, and the events of his career are replete with useful admonitions and warning to the sons of genius, and they whisper to those whose present claims are not allowed that there is a future full of promise. In his life Mozart was neglected and impoverished, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... adaptation to things as they are found. When a new disturbing influence obtrudes from without, and persistently, it may be easier to give way than to resist. British influence is such a persistent obtrusion. In English literature as taught and read, in Christian standards of conduct, in the English language, and in the modern ideas of government and society, ever presented to the school-going section of the people of India within their own land, there is such a continuous influence from without. The impression of works like Tennyson's ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... English language is highly organized, as the parts of speech are highly differentiated. Yet the difference is one of degree, not ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell
... had it translated, for, as I very much regret to be obliged to tell you, I do not know the English language, which deprived me of the extreme pleasure of conversing directly with you and obliged me to remain your silent neighbor, when I had the privilege of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... them of her experience in the hospital at Berlin, and showed that the most sinning, suffering woman never passed beyond the reach of a woman's sympathy and help. She had not, at that time, thoroughly mastered the English language; though it was quite evident that she was fluent, even to eloquence, in German. Now and then, a word failed her; and, with a sort of indignant contempt at the emergency, she forced unaccustomed words to do her service, with an adroitness and determination that I never saw equalled. I ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... he (Wolfe) was at their very doors. Succour from France was unobtainable. To the peasantry he, therefore, offered the sweets of peace, amid the horrors of war. The French colonists, however, were ignorant of the English language as of English customs. They saw no sign of fine feeling towards themselves in so large a fleet and so considerable an army. Every obstacle that could be placed in the way of an invading force, the French colonists patriotically placed in the way of General ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... including, especially, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, have been made the subject of special disquisitions. Yet, although much study and ingenuity have been expended in elucidating the more difficult and obscure points, there is, especially in the English language, a lack of works upon the general theme, combining painstaking investigation into the older (but not, necessarily, better known) sources of information, and an acquaintance with the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... lost time, and could only make up for it by plunging. This habit got him into many awkward scrapes, but his herculean power as often got him out of them. He was a French-Canadian, and a particularly bad speaker of the English language. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a letter of introduction from Captain Passford, intended to assure him of the identity of the French detective. Mr. Gilfleur evidently prided himself on his knowledge of the English language, for he certainly spoke it fluently and correctly, though with a little of the accent of ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... under the provisional administration of the American Government, and which is destined to develop under the protection and guidance of the United States. The only comprehensive publications on the Dominican Republic, in the English language, are the Report of the United States Commission of Inquiry to Santo Domingo, published in 1871, Hazard's "Santo Domingo, Past and Present," written about the same time, and Professor Hollander's notable Report on the Debt of Santo Domingo, published in 1905. The first and ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... because such a notion entered my mind. We cannot help our thoughts, much less our notions, and punishment for that which we cannot help is not in strict accord with latter-day ideas of justice. It may occur to some hypercritical person to suggest that the English language has frequently been murdered in my den, and that it is its horrid corse which is playing havoc at my home, crying out to heaven and flaunting its bloody wounds in the face of my conscience, but I can pass such an aspersion as that by with contemptuous silence, for even if it were true ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... but were dressed in plain grey or black serge, with a rope round the waist, and bare feet. Although they were foreigners and could speak but little English, they encouraged people to write in the English language instead of in Latin ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... the people." An alphabet has been invented by an Indian, named George Guess, the Cherokee Cadmus, and a printing press has been established at New Echota, the seat of government, where there is published weekly a paper entitled, "The Cherokee Phoenix,"—one half being in the English language, and the other in ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... other teachers went to work; I had my own business to mind; and my task was not the least onerous, being to imbue some ninety sets of brains with a due tincture of what they considered a most complicated and difficult science, that of the English language; and to drill ninety tongues in what, for them, was an almost impossible pronunciation—the lisping and hissing dentals ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... ordinance constituting English the official language of India. In a like spirit, he promoted the work of native education, partly for the purpose of developing the political and judicial capacity of the higher orders among the Hindus, but partly also for the purpose of making the English language and literature the instrument of their elevation. He earnestly desired to raise the standard of Indian civilisation, but he equally desired to fashion it in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... he shipped a boy, about fourteen years of age, whom he had persuaded to run away from an English merchant ship, in which he was an apprentice, and an old Frenchman, who had served many years in the carpenter's gang in a French man-of-war, and who understood hardly a word of the English language. ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... day we reached Red Bay and the telegraph office. There are no words in the English language adequate to express my feelings of gratification when I heard the instruments clicking off the messages. It had been seventeen years since I had handled a telegraph key—when I was a railroad telegrapher down in New England—and ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the English Language, and of the Early Literature it embodies. By George P. Marsh, Author of "Lectures on the English Language," etc., etc. New York. C. Scribner. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... following December at Naples. Shelley's letters to Peacock form the invaluable record of this period of his existence. Taken altogether, they are the most perfect specimens of descriptive prose in the English language; never over-charged with colour, vibrating with emotions excited by the stimulating scenes of Italy, frank in their criticism, and exquisitely delicate in observation. Their transparent sincerity and unpremeditated grace, combined with natural finish of expression, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... cannot help alluding, as they seem to have escaped the vigilant eye of the editor. Speaking of Guizot and Sismondi as the leaders of the school of French philosophical historians, he remarks that "the English language possesses some good specimens of this class of history; the most remarkable are Gibbon's Decline and Fall and the works of Mr. Millar." This is as if the author had said that England possessed some good specimens of the Romantic Drama, the most remarkable being Shakspeare's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... of the internal change, which indeed was great. For while he was still fond of all kinds of sporting, it was not in his former crude way; he had even become something of a connoisseur of pictures and was cultivating a respect for the purity of the English language that made him wince at Susan's and Brent's slang. But when he spoke thus frankly and feelingly of the change in him, Susan looked at him—and, not having seen him in two weeks and three days, she really saw him for the first time in many a month. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the English language are much greater than they are commonly supposed. Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... gait of the nineteenth century. "Hurry up!" was about the most threadbare phrase in the English language, and rather than "E pluribus unum" should especially have been the motto of the American people, but it was the first time the note of haste had impressed my consciousness since I had been living twentieth-century days. This fact, together with the touch of my companion ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... next, so very few would know the object itself that the colour attached to it would have no meaning. The power of language has been gradually enlarging for a great length of time, and I venture to say that the English language at the present time can express more, and is more subtle, flexible, and, at the same time, vigorous, than any of which we possess a record. When people talk to me about studying Sanscrit, or Greek, or Latin, or German, or, still more absurd, French, I feel ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... present capacity. If he says, "Such a book tires me," the preceptor should never answer with a forbidding, reproachful look, "I am surprised at that, it is no great proof of your taste; the book, which you say tires you, is written by one of the best authors in the English language." The boy is sorry for it, but he cannot help it; and he concludes, if he be of a timid temper, that he has no taste for literature, since the best authors in the English language tire him. It is in ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... outspokenness, was only natural. Moreover, absolute freedom of speech exists in France, which is not the case elsewhere. Thus, when I first perused the original proofs of M. Zola's work, I came to the conclusion that any version of it in the English language would be well-nigh impossible. For some time I remained of that opinion, and I made a statement to that effect in a leading literary journal. Subsequently, however, my views became modified. "The man who is ridiculous," wrote a French poet, Barthelemy, "is he ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... and the keenness of his attacks, in the translations that were made by the Company's servants from the original Persian of his letters. He therefore proposed to him that they should for the future be transmitted in English.—Of the English language or writing his Highness or the Amir cannot read one word, though the latter can converse in it with sufficient fluency. The Persian language, as the language of the Mahomedan conquerors, and of the court of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Peninsula, especially in the English language, are by no means numerous, yet there are portions of it highly interesting in a physical point of view; and the Spanish national character, and manners, as well as the Roman and Arabian antiquities in Spain and Portugal, furnish ample ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... are facts and one must face them and take from them one's bearings. They stand as the tossing buoy on the drifting waters of our ordinary life. To ignore them often spells disaster. Now, the fact of paramount importance is that the English language is fast gaining ground among the Ruthenians. The recent school laws (we do not discuss here their wisdom)[2], the anti-foreign feeling that has held the country in its grip during the war, the violent campaign of a certain element, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... going to pilot a boat-load of men up the river without the use of the English language," suggested the young naval officer, with a ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... me with a tiny pamphlet, whose price, she informed me, was twenty-five cents, which I readily paid to become the possessor of this chef d'oeuvre. The composition was pretty nearly such as I anticipated, excepting that the English language was done to death by her pen still more than by her tongue. The epigraph, which was ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... childhood; and as they grew older they became the most consummate cronies. Felix almost worshipped his friend, and the friendship was mutual. He was a fair scholar, having attended the academy at Von Blonk Park, where they lived. He could speak the English language as well as a college professor; but he was very much given to speaking with the Irish brogue, in honor of his mother he insisted, and dragged into his speech all the dialects known in the Green Isle, and perhaps supplemented them with some inventions of his own. That great American humorist ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic |
