Polite Language

Famous quotes containing the words polite and/or language:

    “And anyone is free to condemn me to death
    If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
    I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
    And pay a death tax of fairly polite repentance.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “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)