Home / Quotes / Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

Quote by Joyce Carol Oates

“Though words sometimes puzzled Alma, she never looked up any word in any dictionary; a word was like a pebble to be turned briefly in the hand, and tossed away, with no expectation that it would be encountered again.”

Book:The Tattooed Girl

Work

The Tattooed Girl

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is a renowned American author born on June 16, 1938. Her works span various literary forms such as novels, poetry, and drama, known for her unique narrative techniques and profound thematic explorations. more

“FV: Annandale defines 'definition' as "an explanation of the signification of a term." Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as "a statement of the precise meaning of a word." A small, perhaps negligible difference you might think. And neither, would you say, is necessarily more correct than the other? But now look up each of the words comprising each definition, and then the definitions of those definitions, and so on. Some still may only differ slightly, while others may differ quite a lot. Yet any discrepancy, large or small, only compounds that initial difference further and further, pushing each 'definition' farther apart. How similar are they then at the end of this process...assuming it ever would end? Could we possibly even be referring to the same word by this point? And we still haven't considered what Collins here...or Gage, or Funk and Wagnalls might have to say about it. Off on enough tangents and you're eventually led completely off track. ML: Or around in circles. FV: Precisely! ML: Oxford, though, is generally considered the authority, isn't it? FV: Well, it's certainly the biggest...the most complete. But then, that truly is your vicious circle - every word defined...every word in every definition defined...around and around in an infinite loop. Truly a book that never ends. A concise or abridged dictionary may, at least, have an out... ML: I wonder, then, what the smallest possible "complete dictionary" would be? Completely self-contained, that is, with every word in every definition accounted for. How many would that be, do you suppose? Or, I guess more importantly, which ones? FV: Well, that brings to mind another problem. You know that Russell riddle about naming numbers?”

Language Words Contradiction Paradox Dictionary Definition Dictionaries Lexicology

Book:Citations: A Brief Anthology

Source: Citations: A Brief Anthology

“Wake up to think of words… want to walk through pages of meanings, the links in assonance, alliteration, or just simple sense that moves the eye to leap that way to the next-door play of sound and resonance.”

Pages Words Dictionary Sense Wordplay Sounds Meanings Dictionaries

Book:Percipience: Outside the range of understood sense

Source: Percipience: Outside the range of understood sense

“The dictionary is the only book that's not required to reference anybody.”

Book Quotes Mwanandeke Kindembo References Dictionaries Anybody

Author:Mwanandeke Kindembo

“Since language was increasingly believed to be the semiotic system which could be analyzed with the most profit […] and the system which could serve as a model for all other systems […] the model of the linguistic sign gradually came to be seen as the semiotic model par excellence. // By the time this conclusion was reached ( the definitive sanction took place with Saussure), the linguistic model was crystallized into its 'flattest' form, the one encouraged by the dictionaries and, unfortunately, by a lot of formal logic which had to fill its empty symbols only for the sake of exemplification as well. As a consequence, the notion of meaning as synonymy and as essential definition began to develop.”