Majority Language

Famous quotes containing the words majority and/or language:

“Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)

“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)