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Quote by Mick Herron

“Yes yes yes, we'll get the grammar police onto her first thing. Do they have actual powers of arrest, do you think? Or will they just hang her from the nearest participle?”

Quote by Mick Herron

Work

London Rules

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Author

Mick Herron

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“Language guardians have often blamed linguists as defenders of bad language: moral and cultural relativism is often tossed in at no extra charge. We as a profession are supposedly promoting the idea that anything goes in grammar... But no, we have never said anything goes in grammar. (...) When it comes to the proper use of language, universal grammar is the ultimate authority. It is not about what rules are deemed reasonable or popular; it is about what rules are true. And one sign for a true rule is that it appears in young children, long before they are polluted by dubious grammatical advice.”

“Is language actually getting better, shorter, and easier? Nowadays we often hear exactly the opposite. Teenager slang is awful, students no longer learn Latin, our children — not to mention our president — cannot put together a grammatical sentence. The whimsical poet Ogden Nash was at least half serious in his “Laments for a dying language”: Coin brassy words at will, debase the coinage; We're in an if-you-cannot-lick-them-join age, A slovenliness-provides-its-own-excuse age, Where usage overnight condones misusage. Farewell, farewell to my beloved language, Once English, now a vile orangutanguage.”

“My actions, my sequences of life are not determined by you and your shitty mood and needs. You may ignore me at times and happily laugh with me when you like, but remember I am not a child's toy with which people like you can trifle with to enjoy, rather you are the one standing with dirt, hatred, and envious heart which is thrashed and bashed by people already smarter than you and theirs with those who outsmart them and so this cycle repeats and you are lost, as always.”