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Long Words Quotes

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“There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.”

IfsThinkingWantFirstsLongEndsUseMightSimpleReaderExpectationsThirdsSentencesStatementsGreat MenProseMaximsQualificationsShort WordsLong Words
Book:The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
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“There's this moment sometimes, when you do a crossword puzzle and you have the one really long word. And once you get that, the whole thing kind of comes into focus. Sometimes it's just working things over in your mind and then finding that one line that kind of ties the song together, and now it works. It's a puzzle of sorts.”

MindKindLongSometimesWholeMomentsTogetherSongLinesFocusFindingsTiesWorking ItPuzzlesOne LineReally LongCrosswordsLong WordsWorking Things
Author:Craig Finn
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“There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach "a healthy skepticism." They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific.”

ThinkingLongScienceSoundTeachTeacherHealthyClaimsProfoundSkepticismObjectivityDressed UpGullibilityDupesLong WordsScience Teacher
Book:Science is a sacred cow
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“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

IfsThinkingLongUseUsedVoiceBreakCuttingSeeingFiguresSpeechEverydayMetaphorActivePhrasesPrintPassiveSay AnythingSimileJargonFigures Of SpeechLong WordsPassive Voice
Book:Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays
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“When we asked Pooh what the opposite of an Introduction was, he said "The what of a what?" which didn't help us as much as we had hoped, but luckily Owl kept his head and told us that the Opposite of an Introduction, my dear Pooh, was a Contradiction; and, as he is very good at long words, I am sure that that's what it is.”

LongSaidHelpingOppositesVery GoodDearContradictionIntroductionOwlLong Words
Book:The World of Pooh : the Complete Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner
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“There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.”

ThinkingMenLittlesLongSaidWholeStoriesUsePurposeMemoriesStudyWisePlansExampleReaderMachinesCleverTricksObscureSectionsRefinementVery WiseLong Words
Book:Collected Stories
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“Do not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.”

IfsLongEndsUseLastsFormSoundDealsWorstNegativeSentencesStatementsEditingRepetitionPlagueAvoidedClicheVerbsTrendyEuphemismConjunctionsOxymoronUnqualifiedSuperlativesRereadingLong Words
Author:William Safire
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“I like 'pencil-necked weasel'. It has 'pencil' in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it's what you call someone when you're worried that using a long word like 'intellectual' may have too many syllables. It's not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.”

PeopleThinkingWritingMayLongImportantSeriousIntellectualDrawsImportant ThingsGood ThingsWorriedPencilsSyllablesWeaselsLong Words
Author:Neil Gaiman
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“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”

ShouldWritingLittlesPersonsLongBitsCan DoLittle BitClothesDressesCommittedEveningAshamedPetBad ThingsHouseholdEmbarrassedVocabularyDressingsDressing UpLong WordsCuteness
Book:On Writing
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“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.”

WritingLongSecretReaderThousandFunctionSentencesProportionCarrieConstructionPassiveComponentsVerbsGood WritingUnsureAdverbsShort WordsLong Words
Author:William Zinsser
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“A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”

LongRealFactsAgePoliticalLyingSufferingTurnsFallLanguageEnemyIssuesClearMassHatredAimDetailsSnowAtmosphereFollyLatinGapsExhaustedInkCoveringOutlinesSchizophreniaEvasionIdiomInsincerityPolitical IssuesLong WordsPolitical LanguageBad LanguageCuttlefish
Book:Orwell and politics: Animal farm in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from the complete works of George Orwell
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“As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enormous amount of punctuation, without anyone being aware of how outrageously subversive I am being.”

LongEnjoyParticularAmountMessagesAspectEnormousCrowdedSubversiveSpellingCarriagesPunctuationRailwayTextingNon StopText MessageLong Words
Author:Lynne Truss
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