Language Proper

Famous quotes containing the words language and/or proper:

    There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.
    Donald Davidson (b. 1917)

    Out of coils,
    Unscrewed, released, no more to be marvelous,
    I shall walk straightly through most proper halls
    Proper myself, princess of properness.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)