New Orts #29

August 4 MMXXIV

There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.
— widely attributed to Lenin, who probably didn’t say it

I was not a philological prodigy. I lacked that uncanny gift which some people have for language structure which seems akin to a gift for music or calculation. I never became concerned with the metaphysical aspects of language... And I never thought of myself as a "writer" or tried to become one. I was just a brilliant plodder with an aptitude for grammar and an adoration for words.
— Iris Murdoch, in A Word Child (1975)

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)

In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
— Mark Twain